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THE COUNTY FAIR. 


By NEIL BURCESS. 

Written from the celebrated play now 
running its second continuous season in 
New Yorky and booked to run a I,hird s«a- 
Bon in the same theater. « 

The scenes are among the New Hamp- 
shire hills, and picture the bright side of 
country life. The story is full o^amusing 
events and happy incidents, something 
after the style of our “Old Homestead,” 
which is having such an enormous sale. 

THE COUNTY FAIir> will be one 
of the great hits of the season, add should 
you fail to secure a copy you will miss a 
literary treat. It is a spirited romance of 
^ town and country, and a faithfiils^jrepro- 
duction of the drama, with the same unique 
characters, the same graphic scenes, but 
with the narrative more artistically rounded, and completed than w'as 
possible in the brief limits of a dramatic representation. This touch- 
ing story effectively demonstrates that it is possible to produce a novel 
which is at once wholesome and interesting in every part, without the 
introduction of an impure thought cr suggestion. Bead the following 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS:. 

Mr. Nell Burgress has rewritten his play, “The County Fair,” in story form. It 
rounds out a narrative which is comparatively but sketched in the play. It only needs 
the first sentence to set groinur the memory and imagination of those who have seen the 
latter and whet the appetite for the rest of this lively conception of a live dramatist.— 
Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 

As “The County Fair” threatens to remain in New York for a long: time the general 
public out of town may be Klad to learn that the playwright has put the piece into print 
in the form of a storj’. A tale baaed upon a play maj- sometimes lack certain literary 
qualities, but it never is the sort of thing over which any one can fall asleep. For- 
tunately, “The County Fair” on the stage and in print is by the same author, so there 
can be no reason for fearing that the book misses any of the points of the drama which 
has been so successful — AT. Y. Herald. 

The idea of turning successful plays into novels seems to be getting popular. The 
latest book of this description is a story reproducing the action and incidents of Neil 
Burgess’ play, “The County Fair.” The tale, which is a romance based on scenes of 
home life and domestic joys and sorrows, follows closely the lines of the drama in 
story and \Aot.— Chicago Daily News. 

Mr. Burgess’ amusing play, “The County Fair.” has been received with such favor 
that he has worked it over and expanded it into a novel of more than 200 pages. It will 
be enjm'ed even by those who have never heard the play and still more by those who 
h&ve.— Cincinnati Times-Star. 


This touching story effectively demonstrates that it is possible to produce a novel 
which is at once wholesome and interesting- in every part, without the introduction of 
an impure thought or suggestion.— .4 f ban'- Press. 

Street & Smith have issued “The County Fair.” This is a faithful reproduction of 
the drama of that name and is an affecting and vivid story of domestic life, joy and 
Borrow, and rural scenes.— San Francisco Call. 

This romance is written from the play of this name and is full of touching incidents. 
^Evansville Jout-nal 

It Is founded on the popular play of the same name, in which Neil Burgess, who is 
also the author of the story, has achieved the dramatic success of the season.— F’ott 
River Herald. 


Tlxo Oo-ULixt-v is No. 33 Of “The Select Series,” for 

sale by all Newsdealers, or will be sent, on receipt of price, 26 cents, to any 
address, postpaid, by STREET k SRllli, PuhUshers, 26-81 Bose st., Kew York. 


THE SELECT SERIES. 

A WEEKLY PUBLICATION. 

IDev'oted to <3rood Reading in American ITiction. 

BUBSCitirxiox PiiiCE, $13.00 Per Year. No. 70. -DECEMBER 3, 1890. 
Copyrighted^ 1890, by Street <£- Smith. 

Entered at the Post Office, Eew York, as Second- Cla.ss Matter. 



J^i5 Otl^er U/ife. 

A NOVEL. 


BY 

ROSE ASHLEIGH, 

Author of “A Woman’s Wager,” etc., etc. 


“Let none thinh to fly the danger, 

For soon or late love is his own avenger.” 

Btron. 


NEW YORK: 

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 

31 Rose Street* 


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CONTENTS 


CBArTlK. PACl. 

I. — Sleeping Beauty 9 

II. — The Widows Confession 18 

III. — “The Dead Lives.” 32 

IV. — Missionary Work 45 

V. — Amy's Discoveries 56 

VI. — The Indian's Patient 65 

VII. —Rachel 74 

VIII. — Rachel’s Commands 84 

IX. — Mr. Croft’s Ward 96 

X. — Gordon Warren's Pupil 105 

XI. — Spinning aWeb 117 

XII. — A Mortal Combat 127 

XIII. — The Plotters 135 

XIV. — A Sister of Charity 146 

XV. — Lost 153 

XVI. — A Dumb Scout 159 

XVII. — An Eciaircissement 169 , 

XVIII. — The Note of Doom 175 

XIX. — On Board the Madcap 183 

XX. — Serpent and Dove. i 83 


CHAPTER. PAGE. 

XXI. — The Madcap Takes a Prize 199 

XXII. — Man to Man 209 

XXIII. — Graif Conway 217 

XXIV. — A Lamb and a Wolf 225 

XXV. — “In Durance Vile." 235 

XXVI. — An Unjust Steward 243 

XXVII. — A Midnight Visitant 254 

XXVIII. — Moral Leprosy 261 

XXIX. — The Wolf and His Prey 266 

XXX. — A Vulture on Guard. 275 

XXXL— Faith’s Deliverance 283 

XXXII. — Mistress and Maid 291 

XXXIII. — Leda’s Coup d’Etat 299 

XXXIV. — Arraigned 304 

XXXV.— Father Louis’ Story 315 

XXXVL — Father Louis’ Experiment 324 

XXXVII.— Rachel’s Testimony 332 

XXXVIII.— Mistaken Identity 338 

XXXIX.— Sentenced and Reclaimed 346 

XL. — Leda’s Host 356 

XLI. — “Tears, Idle Tears." 365 

XLII. — The Lost is Found 376 

XLIII.— A Meeting 384 

XLIV. — In Nominis Umbra 391 

XLV, — “The Day is Done.” 399 


DENMAN THOMPSON’S OLD HOMESTEAD. 

SIBEEI & SMITH’S SELECT SERIES N«. 28, 


£*rice« 25 Cerxtm, 


Some Ooinions of the Press* 

** As the probabilities are remoto of tbe play • The Old Comescead ’ being 
•een anywhere but In large cities It Is only fair that the story of the piece should 
be printed. Like most stories written from plays it contains a great deal wJilch 
la not said or done on the boards, yet It Is no more verbose than such a story 
should be, and It gives some good pictures of the scenes and people who for a 
year or more have been delighting thousands nightly. Uncle Josh, Aunt Tlldy, 
Old Cy Prime, Reuben, the mythical Bill Jones, the sheriff and all the other char- 
acters are here, beside some new ones. It Is to be honed that the book will make 
a large sale, not only on Its merits, but that other play owners may feel encour- 
aged to let their works be read by the many thousands who cannot hope to see 
them on the stage.”— A. Y. Herald, June 2d. 

“ Denman Thompson’s ‘The Old Homestead’ Is a story of clouds and sunshine 
alternating over a venerat -d home; of a grand old man, honest and blunt, who 
loves his honor as he loves his life, yet suffers the agony of the condemned In 
learning of the deplorable conduct of a wayward son; a story of country life, love 
and Jealousy, without an Impure thought, and with the healthy flavor of the 
fields In every chapter. It Is founded on Denman Thompson s drama of ‘The 
Old Homestead.’ "—N. Y. Press, May 26ih. 

“ Messrs. Street & Smith, publishers of the New York Weekly, have brought 
out In book-form the story of • The Old Homestead,’ the play which, as produced 
by Mr. Denman Thompson, has met with such wondrous success. It will proba- 
bly have a great sale, thus justifying the foresight of the publishers In giving the 
drama this permanent Action form.’ — A. Y. Morning Journal. June 2d. 

“ The popularity or Denman Thompson’s play of - The Old Homestead’ has 
encouraged street & Smith, evidently with his permission, to publish a good-sized 
novel with the same title, set In the same scenes and Including the same charac- 
ters and more too. The book Is a fair match for the play In tbe simple good taste 
and real ability with which It Is written. The publishers are Street & smith, and 
toey have gotten the volume up In cheap popular form.”— A. Y. Graphic, May 29. 

“Denman Thompson’s play, ‘The Old Homestead,’ Is familiar, at least by rep 
tttatlon, to every play-goer in the country. Its truth to nature and Its slmpl# 
pathos have been admirably preserved In this story, which Is founded upon It 
and follows its Incidents closely. The requirements of the stag make the action 
a little hurried at times, but the scenes described are brought before the mind’s 
eye with remarkable vividness, and the portrayal of life In the little New Eng- 
land town Is almost perfect. Those who have never seen the play can get an 
excellent Idea of wljat It Is like from the book. Both are free from senilmentah*.* 
and sensation, and are remarkably healthy In Xone.”— Albany Express. 

“Denman Thompson’s ‘Old Homestead' has been put Into story-form ana \a Is- 
sued by Street & Smith. The story will somewhat explain to those who have not 
seen It the great popularity of th^ Brooklyn Times, June 8th. 

“The fame of Denman Thompson’s play, ‘Old Homestead,’ Is world-wide. 
Tens of thousands have enjoyed It, and frequently recall the pure, lively pleasure 
they took In Its representation. This Is the story told In narrative form as well 
as It was told on the stage, and will be a treat to all, whether they ha^e seen the 
play or not,”— National 'fikbune, Washington, D. C. 

“Here we have the shaded lanes, the dusty roads, the hilly pastures, the 

f leaked roofs, the school-house, and the familiar faces of dear old Swanzey, and 
he story which, dramatized, has packed the largest theater In New York, and 
has been a success everywhere because of Its true and sympathetic touches oi 
nature. All the incidents which have held audiences spell bound are here re- 
corded— the accusation of robbery directed against the Innocent boy, his shame, 
and leaving home ; the dear old Aunt Tilda, who has been courted for thirty 
years by the mendacious Cy Prime, who has never had tbe courage to propase ; 
the fall of the country boy Into the temptations of city life, and his recovery by 
the good old man who braves the metropolis to And him. The story embodies aU 
that the play telia. and ail that It suggests as welL”— ATansoa Citv JoumuL 
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HIS OTHER WIFE, 


CHAPTER I. 

SLEEPING BEAUTY, 

** Lucerne to be sold I How dreadful 

** Dreadful? Humph! I really can’t see why that is 
more deplorable than any other occurrence.” 

Is there nothing shocking to your sense of humanity, 
Mr. Croft, in the fact that two women, nobly born and 
tenderly reared, are to be expelled by the law from the 
grand ancestral estates that have sheltered their fathers for 
over a century, and they left houseless and penniless in a 
country like this?” 

*‘My dear Warren, when you’ve lived as long as I have, 
you'll spend less Quixotic sympathy on cold, haughty 
patricians like Mrs. Morgan and her imperial daughter.” 

As he uttered the last sentence, Mathew Croft, the 

leading attorney of , Fla., by a caustic curl of his 

grizzly mustache showed a very ugly set of teeth, that gave 
to his wide mouth the look of a ferocious beast with tusks. 
The deep-set, steel-colored eyes that glittered under shaggy 
arches of a hue to match his beard, wore an expression 


lO 


SLEEPING PEA [/TV, 


of malignant enjoyment that is not good to see in a man's 
look when women are in the question. 

It seemed to revolt and disgust his companion, the 
pale, homely, self-contained young man whom he had 
addressed as his ‘"dear Warren,” for the latter turned 
abruptly and resumed the perusal of a document from 
which he had just read something which caused him to 
give expression to the opening sentences of this story. 

Mr. Croft let his keen glances rest a moment longer on 
the firm, inscrutable face of his junior partner, as if seeking 
to inform himself of other motives than mere chivalrous 
sentiments for the interest the young man evinced in the 
broken fortunes of Mrs. and Miss Morgan of Lucerne. 
Gordon Warren’s countenance never said to any one more 
than he willed it should, and now even its passing emotion 
of pained surprise had vanished from it — it was unreveal- 
ing as a stone cast. 

“I was not aware that you had any acquaintanceship 
with the ladies of Lucerne, Warren,” Mr. Croft said, with 
an inquisitorial tone that seemed to displease the other, 
who answered curtly, without looking up from the paper : 

“ Nor have I, sir ; but I suppose a man may regard the 
hard lines that adversity draws about frail creatures like 
those, even with all the distinctness of class between him 
and them.” 

“That’s what I call making a fool of himself, then. 
How much do you suppose it would disturb their fine 
heads tQ hear that you were starving to-morrow?” 


SLEEPING PEA C/TV. 


II 


Warren made no answer ; he continued to read as if he 
had not heard the taunt 
Mr. Croft went on ; 

“But since you are so soft about the widow's troubles, 
I’ll give her the benefit of your consideration, and let you 
take these papers out for her signature this afternoon. 
It may soften the blow some to have it dealt her by an 
executioner so sympathetic. ” 

To this Warren made no rejoinder, but said ; 

“Is it not a little strange that the misfortunes of this 
family have fallen so suddenly? I have never heard a 
suspicion of the insolvency of Mis. Morgan's property 
before reading these statements.” 

“Not in the least strange. The management of Mrs. 
Morgan’s affairs having been in my hands solely, it has 
been my care to keep them secure from public notice up 
to the present time; but, as you see by the showing of 
these papers, secrecy is no longer possible — creditors are 
pressing, and, either by private sale or on the block. 
Lucerne must go to satisfy the claims. Fortunately, I 
have been able to effect an advantageous sale of the 
property to a rich New York friend of mine, on conditions 
that he can have possession by the end of October. There 
remains nothing now to complete the arrangement but 
Mrs. Morgan’s signature to those documents. You will 
oblige me, and doubtless do her a favor, by taking them 
to her at once, that I may be able to post a letter this 


12 


SLEEPING BEAUTY, 


evening announcing the conclusion of the business to my 
client. ” 

Of course I shall take the papers if you desire it; but 
I don’t quite see how my performance of that odious duty 
is to confer a favor on Mrs. Morgan. ” 

Simply on the ground that a sick child would prefer 
to take its physic from any other hand than the doctor’s. ” 

Mr. Croft gave a low chuckle of satirical mirth as he 
uttered this grim pleasantry. 

“How much of the purchase money will the widow have 
after her debts are paid?” asked Warren, as he refolded 
the legal scrip which transferred the Lucerne property to 
an alien and a stranger. 

“Not a cent; it all goes to mortgagees.” 

“What is to become of these women then?” 

“That is not my affair, nor yours, I think.” 

Evidently the senior lawyer meant to close the dis- 
cussion by the last remark, which was accented with that 
insolence of power that coarse natures love to assume 
toward their dependents. 

Duly abhorring the mission imposed upon him, yet 
having no just reason to refuse it, young Warren set out 
to perform it. 

As he had stated, he had no personal knowledge what- 
ever of the parties concerned in the transaction, and had 
never set his eyes on either of the ladies. 

Mrs. Morgan and her daughter had been residing at the 
North during several years, and had only recently returned 


SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


n 


to their elegant home in Florida. But under no circum- 
stances would Mr. Warren have been socially acquainted 
with persons so far removed from his own humble rank. 
By sheer force of genius and manhood the young lawyer 
had emerged from obscure poverty at that period in 
Southern life when even affluence could not atone for the 
disgrace of being a tradesman or a plebeian. 

He had not yet worn the professional dignity sufficiently 
long to win him admittance into the patrician circles, even 
had he been properly desirous of that distinction. But, 
unhappily for his future prospects, he had tenaciously 
clung to a vulgar contempt for the condescensions of the 
upper classes. He came of a cold-blooded race of inde- 
pendent artisans, who asked nothing better of the world 
than a chance to win their own bread, and eat it as they 
chose. Such had been Gordon Warren’s success at the 
bar that, with a little enterprise, he might easily have 
procured the recognition of society, with whom a laurel 
wreath would be accepted as ample apology for a very 
conspicuous pair of horns. But the steady acquisition of 
popular favor and patronage seemed to fill the measure 
of his ambition ; and though all the world spoke of his 
eloquence and talent, he made no effort to use them as 
levers to social preferment. 

One pair of eyes only watched, with fond and loving 
tenderness, the gathering sunrays about the quiet, sober 
brow of the young attorney. They were old eyes, and 
faded by many tears, but their welcome seemed all suffi- 


14 


SLEEPING BEAUTY, 


dent for the heart-peace of the tireless student, who knew 
few other paths than the one which led from his widowed 
mother’s cottage to the office of Croft k Warren, counselors- 
at-law. 

To good Dame Warren her “brave laddie" had not his 
equal in all the width of the world, but much I doubt if 
other women would have said so much of his outer man. 
A tall, spare, vigorous frame, with enough of supple grace 
and practical strength to give his physique a somewhat 
formidable aspect; a well-poised head, that sat haughtily 
on his broad shoulders; clea!*, large eyes, with a look of 
eternal calm in them ; heavy black eyebrows, that almost 
met over a straight nose; a firm, chaste mouth, lightly 
shrouded by a very black mustache that intensified the 
sallow paleness of his complexion, made up the personnel 
of our hero — Dame Warren’s and mine, dear reader — 
yours hereafter, if you will. With all this depth of coloring 
and sharpness of outline, there was a passionless repose 
about him that won Gordon Warren the reputation of a 
cold, stern man. Perhaps his mother alone knew that he 
carried a warm, loving heart in his breast. Not much of 
it showed on the surface, but one might easily see that the 
resolute quiet on his face was like the calm that may rest 
on a sea full of terrors. 

Lucerne lay three miles beyond the city. Thither Mr. 
Warren proceeded afoot along the shady road, hedged with 
magnolia and live-oak trees of great size. The fervid haze 
of a warm September afternoon gilded the tops of the 


SLEEPING BEAUTY, 


15 


forest trees, while beneath them a soft gloom, as of slowly- 
coming twilight, made tender mystery. A lazy wind stirred 
Overhead, and filled the voluptuous air with the scent of 
orange groves lying close about the white villa that nestled 
its wings in the luxuriance of tropical shrubbery that was 
over a hundred years old. At a light, swinging pace, 
Warren traversed the lovely sketch of woodland that lay 
between the city and the lake shore on which the Lucerne 
mansion stood. A miniature of the famous Swiss water 
was the small lagoon that now reflected the after-glow of 
sunset. Resisting his impulse to pause on the steep banks 
of myrtle trees that inclosed the lake, Warren hastened 
along the winding walk that led to a broad, paved veranda 
in front of the building. A cornice of ivy fringed the low 
eaves of the piazza and climbed about the slender stone 
columns, giving an appearance of greater antiquity to the 
quaint, half-mediaeval architecture of the building. Cool- 
ness and profound quiet were the most noticeable in- 
fluences of the scene. No sound of human or animal 
life troubled the evening hush, that was dream-like and 
vague. 

The visitor felt himself strangely spelled by the utter 
silence that reigned without and within the closed shutters. 
He had a reluctance to touch the heavy silver knocker on 
the hall door, lest the sound thereof might startle ghosts 
of a vanished time from out the labyrinthine arcades of 
the aged lime trees. 

■ And then he remembered, with a pang, that his presence 


i6 


SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


here was the harbinger of doom and sorrow to two help- 
less darlings of fortune, now to learn for the first time 
what want and privation could do to enervated natures 
that had never learned to endure. Growing restive under 
this thought, he sounded the alarm impatiently, and was 
admitted by a stately old negress into the dim hall-way, 
and thence shown into a suite of rooms on the left side of 
the vestibule. At the entrance of these the dusky guide 
left him to take his card to Mrs. Morgan. 

Heated by his rapid walk, Warren experienced a deli- 
cious sense of refreshment as he glanced down the length 
of these chambers, all opening together through archways 
supported on gray marble columns, and draped with lace 
curtains. The neutral tints of the walls deepened still 
more the tender shadows of the fading day, and the figures 
of statuary stood out in spectral distinctness here and 
there against their surrounding of sober-hued furniture. 
Presently, as his sight grew accustomed to the dimness, 
he discerned, through soft tones of roseate light that stole 
in from the crevices of the western windows, an object 
that startled his sensuous interest keenly. This was the 
form of a woman lying at full length upon a gorgeous 
tiger-skin on the floor of the end room. She seemed to 
be fast asleep. The face was turned toward him, and 
rested on a bare arm that was curled, in the fashion of a 
sleepy kitten’s, under her head. An open book lay beside 
her ; she had lapsed from its pages into her siesta. Almost 
unconsciously the young man had drawn nearer, and 


SLEEPING BEAUTY, 


17 


Stopped within a few paces of the sleeper. Had he been 
an artist, he would probably have thought of Cybele, 
heavy-limbed and white, as he looked on the large, soft 
loveliness of luxuriant curves and snowy flesh, too lightly 
vailed in the thin folds of a muslin negligee, that clung as 
closely as the drapery of an Aurora standing hard by in 
the window recess. 

Nothing could excel the languid grace of her pose, as 
she lay there in the unconscious abandonment of sleep. 
Magnificent lengths of bronze-colored hair flowed loose 
about her throat and shoulders, and but for the light, 
panting breath that warmed her parted lips into a scarlet 
glow, one could scarce have said she was not a waxen 
mold, too perfect and too fair for reality. Despite the 
intense sensuousness of her rich, redundant beauty, there 
was a delicate idealism, too, in its utter repose. She 
seemed to exhale a soft, intoxicating atmosphere from her 
slumbering form. Involuntarily Warren leaned closer to 
breathe it. His intent gaze fed feverishly upon the won- 
derful beauty of this woman. All silent and motionless 
as it was, it bewildered and enchanted him so that he felt 
dizzy. He had seen and been near beautiful women often 
before, and had not felt the smallest care for them — he 
had even fancied himself rather impervious to feminine 
charms ; but now he trembled like a snared bird in pres- 
ence of this creature, whose powers were all fast locked in 
slumber. 

At last his steady look seemed to disturb her ; the long;, 


l8 THE WIDOW'S COrrFESSIOH. 

ruddy lashes quivered a little, then swept upward from the 
purple warmth of humid eyes that seemed still pursuing 
dreams, so far off their tremulous regard. 

She did a very unromantic thing, dear reader — she 
yawned, and stretched her splendid arms above her head, 
and then rose on her elbow, wide awake, and curiously 
scanning the stranger who stood before her. 

‘‘Well, sir ?’" she said, half smiling, half annoyed. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE widow's confession. 

The singular self-possession of the young woman in- 
stantly relieved the visitor of the acute embarrassment he 
had felt a moment previous to her question, and in a few 
words Mr. Warren explained his intrusion upon her after- 
noon nap. 

With a wondrous serpentine movement, in which scarcely 
any muscular action was visible, the young lady rose to 
her feet, as she said, laughing softly : 

“I shall have to be more careful how I lie down to 
read in the parlors. We seldom have a visitor, at this 
hour, and this place is the stillest md coolest— and a.ccU 
dents will happen." 


THE WIDOW^S CONEESSIOH. 


19 

She laughed again as she drew a chair forward, and 
added : 

“Pray be seated, and I will see that mamma comes 
to you.” 

Strangely enough, Warren felt that he would rather she 
staid, but he did not have the nerve just then to tell her so. 

Her light garments swept his feet as she glided past him 
with a wax-like ophidian grace that matched her dazzling 
beauty well. Instead of taking the chair she had offered, 
Warren stood looking after her, and feeling all his pulses 
quickened as by electricity. The touch of her filmy robe 
had thrilled him through by the nameless power of that 
wonderful something for which the wisdom of science has 
found no term more definite than magnetism. The air 
about him seemed vital with subtle emanations from the 
warm luster of her glance, the auriferous shine of her 
fragrant hair. About the tiger-skin from which she had 
arisen there remained, to his excited fancy, a soft odor of 
crushed roses, that came to him hauntin^ly after she had 
passed out of sight. 

He knew at once this must be Leda, of whose rare 
beauty he had heard other men rave. 

Perhaps he would soon have called himself a fool for 
permitting his sensibilities to be disturbed by the loveliness 
of a woman whose lot was separated from his own by the 
great gulf of caste ; but before he had time to make so 
wise a comment upon his emotions, Mrs. Morgan entered 
the first of the three parlors. 


THE mnOlV'S CONFESSION 


Warren stepped forward to meet the slender, delicate, 
and intensely aristocratic woman, who approached him 
feebly, as if scarcely able to sustain herself in walking. 
He saw at a glance that she was an invalid, in the last 
stage of some fatal malady, but still fair as a dream. 

She took the nearest chair, and held out a frail hand 
that was bloodless and wasted. For a moment she gasped 
painfully without trying to speak ; the exertion of crossing 
the house had exhausted her, 

Warren clasped the pallid fingers, and asked, with 
anxious concern ; 

‘‘Can I get you anything, madam?” 

She smiled, shook her head, and pointed to a seat 
beside her. 

“I am a little more ill than usual this evening, and 
moving has unnerved me. I shall be over it presently. 
Give me some air, please. ” 

She glanced toward the closed blinds of a French win- 
dow that gave upon the piazza. Warren opened it, and a 
stream of cool, vapor-laden air from the lake flowed in. 
Mrs. Morgan opened her mouth to breathe in a long 
draught of it. 

The sky was still aglow, and as its radiance of rose and 
saffron tints fell over her face, the woman looked unearthly 
as a disembodied spirit. 

Perhaps the late vision of Leda's superb health and 
gorgeous coloring had sharpened his perceptions painfully 
to the contrast which her mother’s transparent fragility 


THE WiDOW^S CONFESSION, 


21 


now presented. Warren could scarcely believe that this 
diaphanous being, that reminded him of the ‘Mamp of 
naphtha in an alabaster vase,” could be the parent of that 
other organism so richly and almost superfluously endowed 
with strength and vigor. 

Mrs. Morgan seemed sensibly touched by the reverent 
and almost tender solicitude with which Warren regarded 
her during the paroxysm of weakness, from which she was 
now sufficiently recovered to say : 

“ Do not look so troubled ; it is over now.” 

He thought it would soon be over forever and aye, and 
his heart shrank so much from the task he had come to 
perform, that he resolved to leave it unattended to. But 
Mrs. Morgan defeated his considerate determination by 
adding : 

“I presume that you come to me from Mr. Croft with 
the papers I agreed to sign to-day.?” 

“Yes, madam, the papers are here; but, in your present 
condition, you have every right to postpone a mere busi- 
ness formality which can stand for a few days. 

“ Thank you, Mr. Warren, for the thoughtful suggestion ; 
but I shall never be better able to make an exertion than 
now — and what could delay avail me ? I suppose you are 
thoroughly acquainted with the unhappy condition of my 
affairs ?” 

“ I learned only this morning by a hasty review of these 
statements that your estates are to pass to a stranger, dear 
madam, and much I grieve that it is so. ” 


22 


THE WIDOW'S CONFESSION, 


**You are very kind, sir, to feel so. But can it be 
possible that you knew nothing of my embarrassments 
until to-day V' 

“Truly nothing whatever.” 

“Are you not Mr. Croft’s business partner, as well as 
professionally associated with him ?” 

“Yes; but in your case he reserved the right, as your 
friend and my senior, to keep your affairs to himself.” 

Mrs. Morgan smiled bitterly. She was silent for a few 
moments; then, turning herself with an eager motion to 
where Warren sat beside her, she laid her fingers on his 
arm, and said, earnestly : 

“Mr. Warren, do you believe that motives of considera- 
tion for me prompted Mr. Croft’s reticence toward you in 
this business V* 

“He distinctly told me that to-day, and I have no 
reason to doubt his assertion. ” 

“Then I will give you one. It is proper that you 
shall hear my version of this transaction before receiving 
my signature to these papers, which must hereafter incul- 
pate you, as Mathew Croft’s partner, in one of the most 
unholy frauds ever practiced on a helpless woman by a 
dark and cruel man.” 

She halted in her speech to take breath. Her cheek 
had flushed faintly and then grown more ghastly during 
her excited remarks. 

Now there was something terrible in the hueless face, 
lit by the wild and desperate eyes of a woman half mad- 


THE WIDOWS S CONFESSION, 


23 


dened by a secret torture, that Warren could see was at 
that instant wrenching at her heart. 

He seemed afraid of the consequences of her further 
effort to talk, and said, with decision : 

“ Madam, 1 cannot allow you to tax your feeble powers 
in my behalf. If you say there has been wrong-doing in 
' my partners conduct of your affairs, I will insist upon a 
full investigation before I allow this sale to go forward.” 

^‘You would insist in vain; you can learn from no 
other source than my confession all the black infamy with 
which that man — that fiend — has netted in my life. He 
never dreamed its history would be revealed by me ; nor 
could it have been torn from me by torture, except to save 
the honor of a taintless character like yours. I should 
not rest in my grave if I left you in ignorance of the 
treachery with which you are surrounded in your connec- 
tion with Mathew Croft.” 

** Some other time, then ; not to-day — ^you cannot 
bear it. ” 

^‘Alas! I have no surety of any to-morrows. Besides, 
» there is something in your face that woos my confidence 
strangely. I fain would intrust you with knowledge that 
may hereafter stand between my child and dreadful harm. ” 

“In that case, dear lady, speak on. I shall feel it a 
privilege to ease your heart of the sad case. ” 

“Come nearer,” she whispered, as she leaned more 
heavily upon the arm on which her hand still rested, till 
her tremulous white lips were very close to his ear. 


24 


THE WIDOW^S CONFESSION, 


“Judge now what cause I have to pronounce your 
partner a cruel traitor/' said Mrs. Morgan, as she finished 
a recital that had sent the hot, indignant blood with 
tumultuous force through the knightly breast of Gordon 
Warren. 

He had heard her through without a comment; and 
now his cheek was flushed, and his eye glittered as he 
took the weak hand from his arm and raised it to his lips. 
He said, with suppressed feeling : 

“I were unworthy the -name of man, far less of gentle- 
man, did I suffer any consideration of personal interest to 
hinder me from giving whatever aid I can to extricating 
you and yours from the tissue of false appearances with 
which you believe yourself environed. But the matter is 
one of extreme delicacy, in which I must proceed with the 
utmost caution. Trust me implicitly, I beg of you." 

“You must know that I have done that unasked.” 

“I am proud of it, madam." 

“In my turn, I beg one favor — never, under any cir- 
cumstances, let Leda know a breath of what has trans- 
pired. " 

“Can it be that Miss Morgan is ignorant of your 
pecuniary distress?" 

“Not entirely; yet she does not dream of the dire strait 
to which my affairs have come. I thought it useless to 
give her pain until it no longer could be avoided." 

“Your wish shall, of course, govern me. Yet I think 
it would be wisest to have her know." 


THE tV/jDOtV*S COHFESSIOH. 25 

“Perhaps wisest; but, for reasons I canrtot give you, I 
insist that she shall not.” 

“Then it shall be as you say.” 

“ I am not to sign these papers now?” 

“Not now, or ever, I trust.” 

As he spoke, Warren rose to his feet, and under the 
stern repression of his manner there throbbed a passionate 
purpose, that made Mrs. Morgan conscious of having 
linked the young stranger's future destiny with her own 
misfortunes — how, or to what end, remained to be seen. 
Now that she had unburdened her heart of its secret, the 
little store of strength that was in her failed quite. 

“I have no words to thank you for your sympathy, Mr. 
Warren. I — I ” 

The sentence perished unfinished on her pallid lips, 
from which flowed a dark stream over the spotless cambric 
of her robe, and Mrs. Morgan fell heavily forward in a 
swoon. 

Warren lifted her in his arms and laid her upon a couch, 
stanching the life-tide with his handkerchief, after sounding 
the bell for assistance, 

Miss Morgan appeai'ed veiy’ quickly, and, by her desire, 
Warren removed the insensible woman to her bed-chamber 
in the opposite wing of the house. 

“Wait in the parlors until I come to you,” said Leda, 
as she motioned him away and assumed the care of her 
mothers restoration. 

The young man saw at once that it was a sad 3uty, with 


26 


THE WIDOWS S CONFESSION, 


which the girl had become familiar. She showed no 
nervousness nor excitement whatever, but seemed con- 
fident in her skill. He therefore withdrew to the room in 
which he had first beheld the beautiful tableau, and half 
an hour later Leda appeared through the vailed archways, 
bearing in one hand a small lighted lamp, behind which 
her face shone as that of a young goddess. 

“Your mother is better, I trust?” said Warren, as he 
moved forward to meet her. 

“Yes; she is now asleep— she always slumbers pro- 
foundly for hours after one of these attacks. I want you 
to tell me what caused this one, Mr. Warren?” 

She was standing opposite to him, with a small ebony 
table between, on which her right hand rested. Her tone 
was serious and anxious, yet a little imperious. 

“Your mother was discussing an annoying business 
matter with me. Miss Morgan.” 

“Will you state to me the precise nature of that dis- 
cussion ?” 

“I have not the right to do so. Mrs. Morgan is the 
proper person to answer your question.” 

“That is precise!/ what she will not do. I have asked 
her, prayed her to explain the meaning of certain words 
which she uttered in the first instant of consciousness after 
her swoon. She tells me they were meaningless ravings. 
I know better. There is some dreadful trouble on my 
mother’s mind, and I think she has told you, a stranger, 
what she refuses to confide to her dauj2:hter. Is it so ?” 


THE WIDOW^S CONFESSION. 


27 


‘‘Miss Morgan, you must excuse me if I refuse to 
answer any questions concerning your mother s business, 
of which I am simply the professional guardian for the 
present.” 

Leda was silent for a few moments ; then, with a swift 
movement, she reached across the table and placed her 
hand upon Warren's, which also rested on the opposite 
edge of the ebony slab. She raised her eyes entreatingly, 
and said, softly : 

“Do not speak to me like that; you see how ill she is 
— that at any moment I may lose her. She hides her 
trouble from me, because she loves me too well to pain 
me ; but I ought to know it — ^you see that it is time I did 
know.” 

The pressure of her warm, lissome fingers on his hand 
gave a powerful emphasis to her words, and Warren felt 
his fibers quiver to his very heart’s core under her touch. 

“It grieves me to refuse you anything, but indeed. 
Miss Morgan, I cannot tell you one word of what your 
mother has been pleased to confide to me — I have no 
right. Command me to any extent that I can serve you 
otherwise. ” 

Leda drew her hand away, and said, with cool haughti- 
ness : 

“Thank you; but it is not likely I shall ask anything 
further of you after your treatment of my first request ” 

‘*I am sorry that you take it so, but I have no option,” 
said Warren, with severe dignity. 


28 


THE WIDOW'S CONFESSION, 


you know, sir, that I have never before had a 
gentleman speak so to me?" 

‘‘I conclude, then, that I am the first on whom you 
have urged a request so impossible for any gentleman to 
comply with.” 

His cool, incisive accents seemed intolerable to the 
young lady, who flushed hotly and asked, angrily ; 

Do you mean to reprove me?” 

‘‘Certainly not — only to justify myself.” 

She looked keenly into his calm eyes, as if seeking to 
find the most vulnerable spot in his soul. 

There was inexpressible dignity and manliness in his 
whole bearing as he stood fronting her, with his proud 
crest slightly raised, and his glance meeting hers, steadfast 
and patient. 

Quick as thought all her aspect changed ; the imperious 
challenge in her look gave place to that ineffable supplica- 
tion that is a woman’s most invincible argument when she 
appeals to the strength of true manhood. Her tones grew 
tenderly tremulous as she said : 

“Forgive me; I was hasty. I do not demand, but I 
entreat you to tell me what my mother ^aid to you. I 
must know, Mr. Warren.” 

A moment of delirium like drunkenness made hie 
brain swim, as the ravishment of her beauty and the 
piteousness of her prayer besieged his soul and senses. 
He could only say, briefly : 

“I cannot,” 


THE WIDOWS S CONFESSION, 


29 


*‘You will not?" — this with a tender reproachfulness 
that hurt him like a stab. 

“I will not,” he replied; but the pain of saying it had 
whitened his strong face. 

Leda dropped her face in her hands, and sobbed pas- 
sionately as a young child. 

There are men who smile at cannon-balls and rifle- 
shots on a battle-field, that are the veriest cowards in 
presence of a weeping woman. And a beautiful woman 
in tears is a power more dangerous to a good man’s honor 
than a whole army of tempting devils. 

Gordon Warren had no data of experience on which to 
base his calculations concerning Miss Morgan’s present 
conduct; nor would any amount of experience have 
altered the painfulness of his position. But he was not 
made of the stulF to let impulse dictate to principle, 
neither of such as could stand calmly by and see a woman 
shaken with grief. 

Being intensely natural and healthy in all his feelings 
and sympathies, he behaved now exactly as if caste and 
conventionalism were unknown forces in the world; he 
forgot everything save that he was a strong man and Leda 
a weak girl, threatened with the saddest misfortunes in life 
— orphanage and poverty. 

Crossing the narrow space which divided him from her, 
Warren took firm hold of both her wrists and drew her 
hands from her convulsed and tearful face. 

^^Look into my eyes,” said he, gently, “and let me 


30 


THE WIDOW^S CONFESSION, 


speak to you as a man who would do you any service 
consistent with his manhood. I will be your true and 
loyal friend gladly, but I will hot be yours or any woman’s 
slave, to speak as I am bidden and against my conscience. 
My profoundest sympathy is yours, but my honor is my 
own. Your mother has trusted me with her confidence, 
and I will perish rather than betray a syllable of it. Do 
you understand me now? I hope so, for I do not want 
to hurt or offend you.” 

Leda was gazing up to his softenod face now with a 
mute wonder. She had need for surprise. Never had 
man spoken to her as he spoke, nor so utterly ignored the 
sorceries of her beauty, to which life had been one un- 
broken triumphal march. Hitherto it had been hers to 
enchain and to command the strongest and sternest of 
men. To behold herself rebuked and chidden like a will- 
ful child by this homely stranger and low-born plebeian, 
passed all her conception of the fitness of things, and 
filled her with a bewilderment that made her doubt the 
evidence of her senses. His tight grasp on her delicate 
wrists assured her, however, that it was only too real. 

For once in her life, she left artifice aside and behaved 
candidly. Perhaps his indomitable honesty of character 
and directness of purpose compelled her to frankness. 
However that was, she looked thoroughly ashamed of her- 
self, and said, almost humbly, while smiling through her 
tears : 

have behaved absurdly. Pray try to forget it, Mr. 


THE WIDOWS S CONFESSION. 3 1 

Warren; and, believe me, I honor your firmness as much 
as I thank you for your forbearance. Promise me not to 
think of this foolish scene again.” 

“It may be best I should keep it well in mind," replied 
Warren, in -his turn smiling brightly, as he let go her 
hands and withdrew a little way to rest his arm on the 
ledge of a cabinet close by. 

“ I don’t blame you for saying so, but indeed I think I 
shall give you no cause hereafter to ‘remember my former 
sins’ against me.” 

She was laughing almost gayly now, though drying the 
tear-stains from her glowing cheeks. 

“Do not promise anything so rash. A woman of so 
impetuous and variable a mood had best leave herself a 
wide margin in all friendly compacts, I fancy.” 

“ I deserve to have you satirize me thus. You see how 
meekly I take the punishment.” 

“I trust you don’t imagine I would punish you, even 
if I had the power to do so. ” 

“Ah! you know that my own pride will do that suffi- 
ciently. ” 

“And self-chastisement is always most beneficial. But, 
in this case, I think you may be absolved from further 
penance. Allow me to wish you good-evening.” 

“You will come again?” 

“I shall be happy to call to-morrow to inquire after 
Mrs. Morgan’s health.” 


32 


'^THE DEAD LIVES.'^ 


He simply bowed, and passed out through the French 
window to the piazza. 

Leda watched till she heard his step nearing the gate at 
the end of the gravel walk ; then she went out upon the 
paved veranda, and looked after his tall figure passing 
swiftly out of sight in the white radiance of a young 
moon. 

She said, aloud : 

“He is only the son of an emigrant tradesman, but I 
declare Fve seen few noblemen with such an air of con- 
scious superiority. It is absolutely ridiculous how little 
regard he seems to have for my beauty and station ! We 
must endeavor to alter that. He is well worth subjugating, 
and I find it insufferably dull at Lucerne. ” 


CHAPTER III. 

“the dead lives." 

Mrs. Morgan's extreme illness for the space of three 
weeks furnished a sufficient pretext to delay the business 
transactions which had involved Gordon Warren’s fortunes 
with those of the occupants of Lucerne Villa. 

For very important reasons he kept his own counsel for 
the present, determined on the course he would pursue 


^^THE DEAD LIVES,'' 33 

whenever his senior partner attempted to force matters to 
a conclusion. 

Meantime Warren became a daily visitor at Lucerne. 
The constitutional tramp which invariably closed Jiis day's 
work in all weather, now terminated each evening about 
dusk at Lucerne, whence he returned an hour or two later 
under the broadening harvest moon. Night after night he 
resolved to put a longer interval between his visits, but the 
next found him more reluctantly departing from the 
witcheries of Leda's fatal beauty, that seemed to burn 
itself into his brain as by a tracery of flame. 

The weird and terrible mysteries of passional life were 
now for the first time being revealed to him, and the 
priestess that uttered the oracles was skilled as any Pythia 
ot old in her ministry. She had resolved to fasten this 
grand young barbarian to her chariot wheel, and she did 
not make any of those mistakes in her strategy which 
could give an alarm to his discretion before she had am- 
bushed him too securely for escape, even if he should de- 
sire it. Of this desire her knowledge of mankind made 
her very skeptical. She had found her captives always 
willing to be chained. That her own heart might suffer 
in the contest she was too much a woman to consider as a 
question of any moment. Besides, she felt herself mail- 
clad with regard to this man. He was neither rich nor 
well-born — ergo, it was impossible that she could care for 
him. Nevertheless, the vigor and freshness of his charac- 
ter, the subtlety of his intellect, and impressive dignity of 


34 


^^THE DEAD LIVES:^ 


his nature, all combined to interest her beyond any senti- 
ment ever before inspired in her vain, egotistical heart. 

Not only did his visits dispel the dullness from Lucerne, 
but she found herself expecting his arrival each evening 
with a fevered impatience. 

As for him, he did not know that it was the principle 
of her life, the law of her being, to make all men whom 
she fancied her slaves. He did not guess that the glad 
light in her eyes, which welcomed him daily to those de- 
licious hours of intoxicating association with her beauty 
and cultured intelligence, was only an ignis faiuus that 
was luring him into the dismal sloughs where men too 
often sink their souls. 

Moreover, her sad condition, of which she herself was 
ignorant, seemed to demand from him a degree of tender 
consideration and unremitting attention that placed his 
constant presence at Lucerne in the light of a duty. 

Mrs. Morgan, too, seemed to find infinite pleasure in 
his visits. Even when too weak and ill to talk with him, 
she would have Leda bring him into her chamber, and 
silently enjoy the sprightly conversation between them. 

From this quiescent state of blissful infatuation Mr. 
Warren was suddenly aroused by an announcement from 
his partner, Mr. Croft, that it was necessery for him (War- 
ren) to depart forthwith to one of the North-west cities on 
urgent business for the law firm. 

Besides all considerations of professional etiquette, 
which obliged him, as the younger member, to take upon 


DEAD lives: 


35 


him the discharge of such a mission, Warren was indebted 
to Mr, Croft for great service and inestimable benefits dur- 
ing the hard days of his early struggles to secure the posi- 
tion he now occupied. He had, therefore, no alternative 
but to comply promptly. It was agreed between them 
that nothing should be done in the Lucerne business un- 
til his return from the West. 

Not until he was on his way to say adieu to the ladies at 
Lucerne did Warren fairly realize the state of his feelings. 
The shock that was to break the spell of those rapt hours 
of basking in the noontide glory of Leda's beauty also 
sobered his brain, and showed him all the folly and mad- 
ness of indulging his sensuous delight in the society of a 
woman from whom every consideration of prudence and 
honor separated his destiny. 

Even if he were wild enough to dream of winning her 
love, each pulse of his noble heart protested against such 
a suit as dishonorable in him and unjust to her. 

The world — her world — must never have occasion to say 
he had taken advantage of the misfortunes and necessities 
of a beautiful patrician lady to entrap her into an alliance 
that would ostracize her from her place in society, and 
possibly be a source of eternal regret to herself. For he 
could not deceive himself about her innate pride of birth, 
and insatiate ambition to be queen of the realm her beau- 
ty and position opened to her. 

At this thought the mere idea of Leda Morgan marry- 
ing a social Pariah like himself caused the proud, sensitive 


36 ^^THE DEAD LIVES:' 

young barrister to flush to the roots of his hair with con- 
tempt for his insane speculations on the subject. He 
even took a grim satisfaction in the fast approaching sep- 
aration that would put half a continent between him and 
the fateful loveliness that he now knew was poison to his 
moral being if, after this self-examination, he should con- 
tinue to expose himself to its power. 

He had about reached this point in his reflections, 
when the white paling around the lawn in front of the 
villa greeted his sight, and quickened the beat of his heart 
so that he felt faint. A few steps farther showed him Leda 
leaning over the low wicket gate awaiting him. Be sure 
that vision did not conduce much to calming his agitation. 
He had never thought her so fair as now — the pale, rosy 
tints of the evening chastened the fervid warmth of her 
splendid beauty, where she stood with her arms crossed 
over the top of the gate. 

Some soft, silky fabric of turquois blue draped her 
grand figure, and left her arms bare to the elbow, and her 
throat exposed ; a cluster of late roses fastened back her 
hair, and their pink petals seemed pale beside the deep 
flush on her cheek as she held out her hands to Warren 
over the closed gate. 

** You are late this evening,” she said, half shyly. 
had begun to fear you would not come.” 

A glad word of thanks for her sweet impatience to see 
him rose from the tumultuous heart of the young man, 


but he closed his lips firmly against it, and only said, with 
cold politeness : 

“It is kind of you to care whether I came or staid. I 
hope your mother improves 

“ Mamma is much weaker to-day. I think my anxiety 
for her increased my wish to have you come this evening. 
You always leave her cheered and stronger.” 

“I rejoice to hear it; and if it be so, I am sorry this 
must be my last visit to her for many weeks. ” 

Leda ceased to smile, and seemed both startled and 
pained, as she said : 

“ Why for many weeks ? Are you going away ?” 

“Yes; to-morrow I depart on a long journey, for an 
indefinite time. ” 

He tried to say it indifferently, but he was still too little 
practiced in the art of controlling his emotions to seem 
more than resigned to the necessity. 

**Mus/yo\i go?” asked Leda, and her tones were low 
and quivering, her eyes full of pain. 

“ I must go ” 

It was all he could say, with her face pleading like that 
to his passionate heart 

“ I shall feel very desolate when you are gone. Mamma 
grows feebler every day, and we have both learned to 
depend on you too much. ” 

“You can never depend too much upon my devoted 
friendship. Miss Morgan ; and, whether I go or stay, that 


38 


*<THE DEAD LIVES.** 


remains steadfastly yours and your mother’s. But it is my 
duty to leave this place now. ” 

“Ah! I know how inexorable you are about Muty.’ 
Yet could you not delay a little longer for — for mamma’s 
sake?” 

“Alas! no — not even for that. I have no choice but 
to go.” 

Leda was not the woman to let go a purpose easily, and 
something in Warren’s forcibly controlled manner in- 
formed her of a stern struggle going on within him. She 
more than guessed that he was in revolt against the in- 
fluence she had so adroitly laid upon him, and she knew 
that a rebel of his type is forever a lost subject. She de- 
termined to leave nothing undone to lull his soul back to 
the fatal dream from which absence and self-questioning 
would irrevocably awaken him. She laid her clasped 
hands over his shoulder, and said, softly : 

“For my sake, then. I cannot bear to be left so 
lonely, with the fear that each day will bereave me of 
her!” 

For the moment there was genuine passion in the wo- 
man’s heart, as well as in the cunningly modulated tones 
of her rich voice, that could thrill the ear like a tremolo 
note of an organ when she chose. Warren felt every 
chord in his being vibrating to her soft appeal, and his 
powerful young frame was shaken as a reed in the wind by 
the weight of her clinging hands. He dared not trust his 
speech with the burden of feeling that welled in his heart 


39 


'^THE DEAD LIVES*' 

like the sea in a storm. The time was propitious for her 
purpose, and she knew well how to use it. 

“You love me, and you will not leave me,” she mur- 
mured, nestling her fragrant lips to his throat. 

The chains of his stern resolves were all stricken loose 
from his wild heart by that light caress, and by no whim 
of his mind, but as wave meets wave in the*(leep wastes of 
the ocean, he folded his arms about her, answering only 
with the wordless reply that passed all eloquence of 
speech. 

A moment he held her fast-locked against his turbulent 
heart, and then with an almost rude violence he drew him- 
self from her, and hurriedly passed out of her sight on his 
way back to the town. He had only strength enough left 
to do this. He knew that if he staid he might be be- 
trayed into saying what all time could not help him to 
unsay. 

Leda was lost in amazement at his abrupt departure in 
a moment when no human power could have rent another 
man from the clasp of her ravishing arms. 

The next morning, when Warren was already miles 
away on his journey, Miss Morgan received the following 
note : 

“I should never have forgiven myself had I taken advantage of 
your loneliness and sorrow, and possibly your too keen appreciation 
of my poor attentions to your dear invalid, to let you bind yourself 
to the fortunes of one like me. You are young, beautiful, and so 
strangely endowed with that mightiest of human gifts— the power to 


40 


^^THE DEAD LIVESr 


make yourself loved — that I should hate myself eternally if I could 
lure a star so bright from its orbit into the uncongenial sphere of my 
commonplace existence. I dare not ask you to share my life of stem 
endeavor — perhaps of failure. Only a dishonorable coward would so 
misuse your confidence. I will do what I can to save you from dis- 
tress. While you require my friendship and devoted service, and 
until I know you safe and happy with one worthy to be your life’s 
guardian and protector, I shall remain 

“ Yours to command, W 

Leda smiled over this letter as she refolded it and 
‘locked it away in her desk. 

She read between the formal lines, and was content to 
know that if it suited her to be patient with his chivalrous 
scruples, she easily might hold his great heart’s allegiance 
forever. 

♦ ♦ * * 

Three weeks later. 

Leda is alone at Lucerne. Mrs. Morgan has been two 
days in her grave. 

** Honey, Mr. Croft is here, and waitin' in de parlor fur 
to see you.” 

It is old Aunt Charity, the negro nurse of her infancy, 
who thus addresses Leda. 

Miss Morgan rose at once from the old mahogany cabi- 
net in her dead mother's room, where she had been over- 
looking some papers and letters which Mrs. Morgan had 
desired her to collect and burn. 

She glanced at her superb figure, now clad in mourning 
robes of soft Canton crepe, smoothed back the glossy 


‘*^THE DEAD LIVES.** 


41 


bands of her hair, and passed directly into the presence 
of the old family friend and attorney, Mathew Croft. She 
said, after bidding him good-day : 

“I had your note last evening, sir, preparing me fora 
painful interview this morning. Will you kindly relieve 
my suspense at once ?” 

Mr. Croft looked embarrassed, twisted himself nerv- 
ously, and with infinite awkwardness, upon his chair, 
showed his tusks, and thus delivered himself : 

Well, my dear, you are a brave woman, and I feel it 
is best to be candid and straightforward with you. In the 
fewest possible words, my dear Leda, this estate of Lu- 
cerne, the last remnant of your father’s vast property, is, 
and has for some time been, utterly insolvent, and covered 
with mortgages. I had, just before your dear mother’s 
last illness, by her consent and approval, concluded a sale 
of Lucerne to a Northern client of mine, at more advan- 
tageous terms than I had any reasonable hope of making, 
otherwise the property must have been sold at public out- 
cry, to the highest bidder, to sattsfy the claims of exacting 
creditors. ” 

‘‘How is it that I never heard of this?” cried Miss 
Morgan, pale with pain and humiliation at her forlorn 
condition. 

*^It was your mother’s will that you should not know 
it She wished to save you the blow as long as possible. 
But now I have no alternative but to tell you fi-ankly.” 
Leda was quite still for a few moments; she felt too 


41 


^'THE DEAD L/FES.**\ 


crushed to speak, too proud to lament; but nature and 
youth refused to be curbed by pride, and a despairing cry 
broke from her, despite her cruel effort to repress it. 

“Is it true that I am homeless and a pauper, Mr. 
Croft?" 

Mr. Croft did not answer immediately. He was look- 
ing at her with the changeful gleam in his eyes of one 
who is withholding a proposal at once improbable yet full 
of joy. 

At length he leaned toward Leda, and took one of her 
hands between his own. He said, timidly, but eagerly : 

‘ ‘ My dear, I should not have had the courage to make 
this terrible announcement to you if I did not have it in 
my power to offer you both a home and a fortune far sur- 
passing the one you have lost. Believe me, ' beautiful 
Leda, all that I am and have is laid with pride at your 
feet I am no longer young, but for that reason all the 
more capable of adoring and cherishing your royal youth 
and loveliness. You know that I am in a position to ful- 
fill your highest dreams of social ambition. You have 
only to dictate — I to obey. Do I ask too much, dear 
child?" 

« “Give me time to think, Mr. Croft," gasped the girl; 
for between her sight and the elderly, distinguished suitor 
for her hand, had flitted a vision of the passion-pale 
young face of Gordon Warren as she saw it last, while he 
pressed that wild kiss on her lips, 
c ‘"Alas I my dwr, time is precisely the one thing which 


4S 


vr/f£ DEAD LIVES,** 

I cannot give you. By becoming my wife you give me 
the right to come to the rescue of your property, and save 
it from sacrifice, and you from poverty and all its grim 
sufferings. Only in this way can I stop the legal proceed- 
ings which must proclaim your sad reverses to the world. ” 

He touched the quick spot on Leda’s nature now ; he 
knew how little nei*ve she had to endure the bitter scoffs, 
and still more bitter compassion, of her social equals and 
rivals. Having found the wgund, he pressed it hard. 

“You know how the world of women will gloat over 
the downfall of the queen who has held empire so long; 
and, Leda, you are too delicate a flo\^r to bear the biting 
blasts of adverse fate. I do not ask for your love now — I 
will win that hereafter. Only place your hand here in 
mine — that will be answer enough until you care to 
speak. " 

Leda closed her eyes ; a violent shuddering seized her ; 
the doom he painted seemed so unbearable — the escape 
from it scarcely less so ; but in the latter her pride would 
be saved, though her heart might starve. She grew livid 
and cold with the horror of her own act, as she laid her 
fingers on the outstretched palm of Mathew Croft’s hand. 

^ * 4 : * * 

It is just a week since Leda’s wedding-day. Mrs. Croft 
is seated with her husband upon the sunlit piazza at Lu- 
cerne, and enduring, with a very bad grace, his uxorious 
attentions. A critical observer might easily discover that 
her patience with his amorous demonstrations was already 


44 


^*THE DEAD LIVES,^* 


nearly exhausted. The enraptured bridegroom, however, 
with the sublime credulity of passion, seemed utterly con- 
tent with his privilege to caress the glorious beauty of his 
young wife, and took no thought of the wide gap of 
years that divided his age from her fresh and perfect 
youth. 

Mr. Croft had succeeded in inducing Leda to let her 
face lie for five minutes on his shoulder, while he bent 
over it in absorbed delight ' 

Thus engaged, neither of them perceived that a vailed 
and black-robed figure had entered the garden gate, and 
glided noiselessly up^he walk till it stood upon the porch, 
casting its somber length of shadow over them where they 
leaned together. 

Then they looked up, and fixed a curious gaze on 
the dismal apparition still shrouded in the long black 
vail. 

‘‘Who are you?” asked Mr. Croft, with rude impatience 
at the interruption. 

The black figure made no other answer than to cast 
back the thick folds of the crepe from her face. 

A wan, aged, and corpse-like face, with the pain-tracks 
deep upon it, and bands of snow-white hair lying close 
about a cold, immutable brow, whose aspect of changeless 
despair was simply terrible. 

This pallid creature turned two coal-black eyes of start- 
ling brilliancy from one to the other as she stood just 
midway between the husband and wife. Her look seemed 


MIS SION A R Y WORK. 4 5 

to pierce like cold steel to the brain of both, for both 
grew pale as they met it. 

Then she put out a lean, brown hand, with fingers like 
talons, and resting it on Mathew Croft’s shoulder, while 
she kept her gaze on Leda, she said to the wife : 

“ Do you call this man your lawful husband?” 

** Yes,” answered Leda, in a low, scared way, shrinking 
back from the lurid eyes of the strange woman. 

So do I” said the woman, dropping the words slowly 
from the bloodless lips, now drawn from discolored teeth 
in a horrid smile. 

After a pause, during which the trio remained breath- 
less, the gray woman leaned her ashen face nearer to Mr. 
Croft’s, and added : 

My husband, and my would-be murderer I Mathew 
Croft, the victim returns to punish your crime, or to wring 
from you atonement for her great wrongs. The dead 
lives r 


CHAPTER IV. 

MISSIONARY WORK. 

It was true that the wife he believed to have been quiet 
in her grave for eighteen years now stood before Mathew 
Croft in the fell guise of an avenging spirit. 

Just twenty years ago Mr. Croft had made his appear- 


46 


MISSIONARY WORN 


ance in the little frontier town of one of the new Western 
States, to which we will give the' name of Bethel. 

To the simple-minded citizens of Bethel he presented 
himself as a missionary preacher of the Evangelical per- 
suasion, which, we know, leaves much scope for a clever 
and imaginative mind’s operations upon a credulous com- 
munity. 

The inhabitants of Bethel were composed of emigrants 
from the densely crowded cities of the North-east. Trades- 
men, artisans, farmers, and mechanics dwelt together, a 
band of brothers in their city of refuge, on the banks of 
one of those lovely and romantic rivers that wind patiently 
through the great mountain passes, and along the rich 
mineral soil, to the peaceful ocean beyond the golden 
shores of California. 

The zealous missionary was received by these good folks 
as the patriarchs of old welcomed itinerant angels passing 
their way. It chanced that Mr. Croft found lodgement in 
the household of an old couple who were childless, but 
who had charge of a young relative who was their ward 
and adopted daughter. 

This young lady possessed no other attraction than a 
snug little fortune, of which she was to have unrestricted 
possession on her eighteenth birthday. 

Rachel Logan was a girl of strong passions, and only 
mediocre intelligence, but her sensibilities were painfully 
acute, and her personal homeliness was a source of ex- 
quisite torture to her. 


MISSIONARY WORK. 


47 


She belonged to that unhappy class of women whose 
need of love and kindness amounts to an insatiate craving ; 
yet, with this nature, she was forever confronted with the 
fact that both men and women turned from her with in- 
stinctive coldness. Even her adopted parents showed her 
only lukewarm affection. Consequently, at the tender age 
of seventeen, Rachel was a morbid cynic, who believed 
with her whole soul that God had created and placed her 
in the world for no other purpose than to suffer. 

This girl attended the first meeting that assembled in 
the village church to listen to the new preacher's discourse 
on evangelical religion. The former pastor, who had re- 
cently died, had been a Presbyterian ‘*of the most strictest 
sect," and Rachel had grown up under his terrible teach- 
ings of predestinarianism, and his fiery warnings of ‘‘the 
wrath to come,” 

The new minister took his text from St. John— '“Love 
ye one another, my little children.” 

In a stream of rich and tender eloquence he poured out 
the waters of life on the arid sands of the congregation be- 
fore him. 

Men, women, and children, whose hearts had become 
seared as a desert by the fiery winds of doctrine which the 
stern old Knoxite had let loose from his pulpit each Sun- 
day, were melted to tears by the soothing words of gospel 
love, mercy, and long-suffering patience which fell so 
sweetly from the missionary’s lips. 

. foor Rachel Logan almost sobbed her heart out. 


48 


MISSIONARY WORK, 


After the meeting Mr. Croft joined the family at their 
seat in the end of the church, where they waited for him. 
He let the old pair, Mr. and Mrs. Reed, go on before, 
while he drew Rachel’s hand upon his arm and led her 
homeward, playing the while upon her sentient heart- 
chords, as a cunning harper plays upon the well-attuned 
strings. 

For several weeks he never spoke to the girl on any 
other subjects than religion. By the end of a month she 
adored him as a saint, but did not know that she loved 
him as a man. 

Finally the new minister asked the old man Reed’s con- 
sent to address his ward. It was promptly given, for, by 
that time, Mr. Croft had established himself in the very 
sanctuary of the people’s heart. 

Rachel almost died of ecstasy when she heard Mathew 
Croft ask her to be his wife. Never did a votary of the 
dreadful Moloch fling life’s treasure into the idol’s flames 
with joy more wild and reckless than that with which 
Rachel Logan abandoned herself, soul and body, to her 
love for this man. 

They were married, and remained in Bethel until a short 
time after Mrs. Croft came into absolute possession of her 
handsome fortune, left her by some rich relative in the 
South-west. 

Meantime, the old lady — her adopted mother — had died. 
Mr. Croft knew that the poor old man could not long sur- 
vive his life’s companion, yet he made no scruple of re- 


mSSIONARY WORK, 


49 


moving with his wife to a distant St^te, leaving Mr. Reed 
to the care of his servants. He assigned to the Bethel 
church a good and sufficient reason for his change of resi- 
dence — his health was breaking in the chill climate of that 
latitude — he was going to one of the Texan towns on the 
Gulf coast. A few weeks after being settled with her hus- 
band in the new locality, Mrs. Croft received news of her 
adopted father’s death. 

Now she was utterly alone in the world, with only her 
husband’s love to rest her hungry heart upon. But this 
seemed entirely to satisfy her. She worshiped him with an 
abject and slavish devotion that was simply pitiful. His 
manner to her was considerate, kind, and occasionally 
affectionate ; her own absorbed passion gilded it and sup- 
plied all its deficiencies. To be allowed to love him was 
of itself unutterable bliss. 

In the city of the minister and his wife boarded 

with a widow. Very soon Mrs. Croft’s health became so 
delicate that she kept her bed most of the time. Mr. 
Croft consulted one or two physicians about her, but 
none seemed able to diagnose or treat her singular mal- 
ady, which was mental as well as physical. They said her 
brain seemed to be softening. 

Mr. Croft was untiring in his attentions. He daily re- 
ceived the prescriptions of the attending physician, and 
with his own hands prepared and administered the doses. 
Not only this, but he insisted on long professional discus- 
sions as to the nature and progress of her symptoms, and 


so 


ms SIONARY WORN, 


the character and probable effects of the treatment she was 
receiving. 

Finally the poor lady became so dangerously ill that her 
death was imminent. Mr. Croft seemed to be plunged in 
grief. The most intense sympathy was manifested by the 
family of the landlady in the husband’s sorrow. The nurse 
was a very good old mulattress, a slave, who belonged to 
Mrs. Croft, having been left her as portion of her moth- 
er’s estate, which consisted of a plantation and some ne- 
groes in Mississippi, but which Mrs. Croft’s guardian had 
sold, converting the property into bonds and stocks. This 
old woman alone was reserved from among the negroes, 
and had always remained with Rachel. She seemed to 
resent her master's demonstrations of affliction. Of course, 
she dared not do so openly, but in a thousand mute ways 
she discovered the most intense dislike for and mistrust of 
Mr. Croft. 

When Mrs. Croft found herself sinking so rapidly, she 
begged of her husband to draw up a legal paper emanci- 
pating the old woman, and bestowing on her the moderate 
sum of five hundred dollars, which, for fear of accidents, 
Mrs. Croft gave at once into Amy’s hands. 

Perhaps Mrs. Croft divined the antipathy which old 
Maum Amy felt toward her new master, and, knowing Mr. 
Croft’s anti-slavery prejudices, was willing thus to relieve 
both parties from mutual relations, equally distasteful to 
both. The old woman received her gift of freedom, and its 
accompanying legacy, with tear§ and groan§ of gratitude, 


MlSS/ON-AJSr WORJC. 


51 


''When I am dead, Maum Amy, you can go and find 
seme of your people in Mississippi,” said Rachel, to her 
cld nurse, a few days after this transaction. 

‘ ‘ Lord, missy ! I 'spec' de las’ one on ’em done dead 
and gone long ’fore dis time !” 

" What ! Do you think sixteen years has exhausted the 
lives of your whole family, Maum Amy ?” 

"Dat’s true. ’Tain’t been so long, but it ’pears like a 
monstrous long time since I lef dem on de ole planta- 
tion.” 

It was a pathetic commentary on the way time had 
dragged by for the lonely old creature, away from the 
familiar scenes and faces of her past life. 

It was Mr. Croft's habit to dismiss the old woman from 
her mistress’ bed-chamber at a certain hour each evening, 
and take upon himself the care of waiting upon the in- 
valid, and giving the prescriptions during the night. For 
some private reason, old Maum Amy chose to return, after 
an hour’s absence, on the night of the day during which 
her mistress had spoken with her of her approaching 
death. 

With stealthy step the mulattress crossed the sitting- 
room adjoining the bed-chamber. It was near the hour 
for her mistress to take the opiate draught, without which 
her nights were sleepless and torturing. She knew this, 
and seemed desirous of seeing whether or not it was duly 
administered, and in what quantity; for, during several 
days past, she had observed that the invalid awoke in the 


52 


MISSIONARY WORK. 


late morning utterly stupefied and exhausted. Maum Amy 
suspected that her master had given over-doses in order to 
be relieved of tedious night vigils by his sick wife's pillow. 

Just as the nurse had posted herself where she could, 
from a place of concealment in the dark antechamber, 
observe the proceedings in Mrs. Croft's bedroom, she heard 
the little clock on her mistress' mantel-piece strike the 
hour of ten. 

“It is time for your sedative dose, my love," said Mr. 
Croft to his wife. 

“Yes, dearest, I am ready for it whenever you wish; 
but I think I’d rather suffer a little longer from this eating 
pain in my head, and be able to see you and touch your 
hand, than be eased by the drops into forgetfulness. " 

“You are a dear creature to feel so, Rachel, but I can- 
not allow you to indulge your heart at the expense of your 
head." 

As he spoke he proceeded to measure out some liquid 
into an apothecary's glass. While thus engaged, he was 
standing behind the tall, old-fashioned bed-head, which 
stood free of the wall several feet, and formed a screened 
recess, whpre a table and wash-stand were placed. On 
the table bottles and glasses, with a night-lamp, were ar- 
ranged. 

Maum Amy occupied the proper angle in the next room 
to catch the full reflection of her master's proceedings from 
a large mirror on the bureau in the sick-chamber. But 
for this unexpected agent his operations must have been 


mSSrONARY WORir, 


53 


hid from her, as he stood with his back between her and 
the table. But the glass presented the whole performance 
most vividly, and Mr. Croft’s countenance as well. 

Old Amy’s fox-like eyes fastened their keen scrutiny 
upon the dark face that fronted her in the mirror. It 
would have attracted the gaze of a less suspicious pair of 
eyes than the mulattress’; for the sad, dejected expression 
which for days had commanded the condolence of all who 
looked on it, had now given place to one of devilish glee 
that made the old woman hold her breath with fear of what 
lay hid behind that grinning mask. He had poured into 
a wine-glass a much smaller quantity of the night-draught 
than Mrs. Croft was accustomed to take at intervals during 
the day. This he held balanced between his glittering eye 
and the lamp. 

Satisfied with the portion he had put into the glass, Mr. 
Croft recorked the vial, and, placing the glass upon the 
table, took from his vest pocket a tiny flask of crystal, 
which he had to unwrap from a quantity of tissue paper. 

As he took the glass stopple from this vial his fingers 
seemed to quiver intently, and the evil gleam grew more 
intense in his half-closed eyes. This vial emitted a singu- 
lar odor that caused Mrs. Croft to say : 

‘‘What is burning, my dear?” 

“Only a scrap of linen, my love, that fell into the lamp 
by accident just now.” 

But Amy saw that no scrap of linen was anywhere to be 
seen near the lamp, and, furthermore, that her master had 


54 


MISSIONARY IVORIC, 


started and turned white as a ghost at Mrs. Croft's ques- 
tion. 

Having answered her thus, he poured the whole con- 
tents of the vial into the glass of medicine, and instantly 
placed the empty vial in the water-bowl, which was half 
filled with water. 

‘‘There, dear, drink your soothing drops; they will give 
you a long rest.” 

“Thank you, darling. How good you are to me. God 
bless you for this as for all your living acts toward mel 
Rest ! and from your hands ! Ah, the boon is doubly 
sweet after the long, weary pain !” 

Thus speaking, after having swallowed the drink, Mrs. 
Croft lay back on her pillow, holding her husband’s hand 
to her lips, and looking up to him gratefully, she added : 

“How pale you are, dearest. Your vigils by me are 
telling on you. You shall lie here beside me, and rest, 
too. Only to have you so near will bring me repose 
sweeter than all the balms of the East.” 

“You shall not lack for that, or any ease that I can fur- 
nish you, my poor Rachel. Be still now. I will come to 
you presently when I have bathed my hands. ” 

Retiring once more behind the head-piece of the an- 
tique bed, Mr. Croft dipped the wine-glass into the basin 
with the vial, and applied a sponge with soap to both, 
thoroughly cleansing his hands at the same time. 

This done, he dried the glass and flask upon the towels. 
The flask he re-stopped and re-enveloped in its roll of 


MISSIONARY WORN, 


55 


dark tissue paper. He then put it back into his pocket, 
but kept his fingers on it hesitatingly, as if reluctant to 
leave it there. 

Afterward he glanced uneasily all round the chamber, 
examining different objects curiously. Evidently he was 
dissatisfied with his vest pocket as a repository for the 
empty little flask, and just as evidently he was seeking a 
more convenient place for it. His eye rested a moment 
on the open fire-place, where there was neither fire nor 
fuel to kindle one; the time was summer. That would 
not do. 

Each spot seemed to present an equally uninviting pros- 
pect, till finally he glanced upward to the high faded tester 
of the bed canopy. 

Froili the fringe of dust around the edge of this canopy, 
Mr. Croft opined that the housemaid’s besom seldom 
aimed so high, and, by a light movement of his arm, he 
quickly tossed the little vial upward over the cornice of the 
tester. It fell noiselessly amid the layers of dust that too 
often attest the sacredness in which the “ best room” of 
the house is held. 

Stepping to the bedside, Mr. Croft saw that his wife had 
already fallen asleep. 

A few hours later the household were aroused by the in- 
telligence that Mrs. Croft was dead I 


AMV^S DISCOVERIES. 


CHAPTER V, 

Amy's discoveries. 

‘‘I had fallen asleep beside her, and was waked up by 
hearing her gasp hoarsely, as if trying to call. By the 
time I could rise and lift her in my arms she was dead !” 

This was the statement which the bereaved husband 
made, shaken with sobs, when the landlady and her 
daughters rushed into the chamber where Rachel lay with 
strangely composed features for one who had only a few 
moments previously passed through the death-struggle. 

She might have been dead for days, so utterly ^ rest 
were all the lines of her face; indeed, one could easily 
have mistaken that breathless quiet for the rest of deep 
slumber. 

As they all stood round the pale sleeper, exchanging 
those mysterious whispers and lugubrious glances proper 
to such melancholy occasions, the sound of hobbling feet 
in heavy shoes was heard rapidly nearing the room. 

It was old Amy, who rushed headlong to the foot of 
the bed, where she fell on her knees with a prolonged 
howl. 

‘*My poor chile 1 my poor chile! Lord in Hebben! 
What is dis niggar to do V' 

No one present construed aright the frantic ejaculations 


AMY'S DISCOVERIES, 


57 


of the old nurse, nor dreamed of the chaos which was 
whirling her ignorant, slavish old brain to madness. She 
felt her heart bursting with a frightful conviction which she 
knew she dared not utter at the peril of her own life. Yet 
how to keep that secret in her breast and live, seemed at 
this moment a problem that she had need to refer to the 
“Lord in Hebben.” 

While she lay prone and convulsed with wild moans and 
sobs, she felt her master’s hand close firmly, even harshly, 
on one of her arms, and his voice seemed to come hissing 
through clenched teeth to her ear. 

He said, in a low, but distinct tone : 

“Stop this noise instantly ; this is no place for your loud 
lamentation I” 

With a movement of half-savage grief, the old slave 
sprang up, and, wrenching herself free of the cold, reso- 
lute hand, she exclaimed, fiercely : 

“Ain't I bin help fetch de chile into de worl’, an’ you 
’spec’ me no feel grief w’en she tek out of it like dis/* 

A flash as of sparks seemed to fly from Mathew Croft’s 
blazing eyes. He felt the desire to seize and throttle the 
faithful old creature, whose genuine suffering seemed to 
accuse his own crocodile tears. But, controlling himself, 
he turned away from her, lest he might be betrayed into 
some act' which would create surprise or mistrust in the by- 
standers. 

Mrs. Rowe, the landlady, succeeded in quieting Maum 
Amy’s tempestuous lamentations by requiring her services 


58 


AMY*S DISCOVERIES, 


in the sad office of * Maying out” the dead body of her mis- 
tress. When this was duly completed, Mrs. Rowe desired 
to speak in private with Mr. Croft She said : 

am sorry to ask such a thing of you, my dear sir, 
but one must look out for one’s self and one’s own in this 
selfish world, you know. It’s mighty hot weather, Mr. 
Croft, and there’s rumors of Yellow Jack, and typhus, 
and various other pestilence, as which, the Bible says, do 
walk in noonday. Now, if you would be so good, my 
dear Mr. Croft, as to consent for the body to be carried to 
the chapel in the cemetery, and there laid until the proper 
time for decent burial, it would take a load from my mind. 
This coast ain’t healthy, and I’ve a large fam’ly, and a 
corpse a-lyin’ in a house, under a tin roof, on an August 
day, might breed some bad fever or other that’d drive 
lodgers away.” 

With this the widow put her ample handkerchief to her 
eyes and held out her hand to the widower. 

Not seeming to see the plump red fingers which his 
landlady reached to him, Mr. Croft said, with great kind- 
ness : 

*T fully recognize the justice of your appeal, my good 
woman, and, of course — painful as it will be to my feel- 
ings — I will not hesitate to sacrifice them to the good of 
your family.” 

“I felt certain you’d see it so, sir— a .Christiam minister 
like you is always sure to see things in the best light for 
other people. After all, sir, it will only be partin’ from 


A3fY*S DISCOVERIES. 


59 


the dear departed a few hours sooner. Under all the cir- 
cumstances, and the extreme heat of the weather, the body 
oughtn't to stand out of the ground longer than to-night. 
A night fun’ral’s a solemn and beautiful thing, sir — sight 
more interesting than a day fun’ral.” 

Again Mrs. Rowe wiped her widowed eyes and leered 
affectionately at the calm, sad face of the widower. There 
was no response in it^ to her tender sympathy. 

It was agreed that the body should at once be coffined, 
and, in the early morning, removed to the small chapel in 
the cemetery until the preparations for its interment were 
properly and decorously completed. 

Mr. Croft, accompanied by the widow and her two 
daughters, attended, in a close carriage, the slow progress 
of the hearse that bore the remains of Rachel Croft to the 
chapel. 

Old Amy refused the permission given her to take the 
seat by the carriage driver, and instead she locked herself 
up in Mrs. Croft's bedroom. It must be at least two 
hours before the escort could return from the cemetery. 

A few minutes only had elapsed since the procession 
turned the street corner on its slow way, when Amy 
emerged from the basement hall of the house, and, at her 
most rapid gait, took her course by the shortest route to a 
small shop in the suburbs of the city. The sun was 
already very hot when she reached a low awning of sail- 
cloth that was stretched in front of this shop. 

Beneath the awning, upon a bench, sat the lean, lank 


6o 


HMV'S DISCOVERIES, 


figure of an Indian. A leathern apron covered his knees, 
and upon the apron some dry herbs were lying ; from these 
he seemed to be selecting leaves that he flung into a small 
copper vessel, under which an alcohol lamp burned. This 
was a famous quack doctor, held in great esteem by the 
lower classes of the town's folks, and infinitely contemned 
by the medical profession, with whose trade he meddled 
too successfully to suit their ideas of humanity. The sim- 
ples of the Indian quack sometimes healed bad cases that, 
under the more scientific treatment of orthodox physicians, 
bid fair to take speedy adieu of life's troubles and pains. 

Would you mind steppin' inside the shop just one 
second, boss?" said the mulattress Amy, as she dropped a 
respectful courtesy to the Indian pharmacist. 

“Why inside? What do you want of me?" 

“Somethin' I can't tell outside, boss, else I nebber ben 
ax you fur come in.” 

There was a subdued air of suffering, anxiety, and dread 
all combined in Amy's tone and manner that held the at- 
tention of the Indian's queer black eyes. He put his 
herbs beside him on the bench, and stepped within the 
little shop, the mulattress following. Making sure that 
they were alone, Amy took from her bosom a small pack- 
age, which she handed to the Indian. 

“Kin you tell. me anyt'ing 'bout sich kind of physic as 
is put up in dis fashion, boss ?" 

The doctor unwrapped the brown paper cover which 
enveloped the package, and then a quantity of dark tissue 


AMY'S DISCOVEJilES. 6t 

paper, till he came to the vial, whoi^e contents Amy had 
seen her master empty into her mistress’ night-draught. 

She was steadfastly, and with feline scrutiny, watching 
the Indian’s face. It is worthy of comment here the de- 
gree of skill which negroes and all ignorant menial races 
achieve in the reading of faces. Amy seemed to belong 
to this class of physiognomical students; habitually she 
spoke little, but she used her eyes, and what she did say 
was generally to the point. 

** Where did you get this, old woman?” asked the In- 
dian, after having unwrapped and held the vial for a few 
moments to his keen, slender nostrils, that looked as if 
their capacity might vie with a grayhound’s. 

“I fine it, sah.” 

“Where did you find it?” 

“Dat’s my business, boss.” 

“Its mine also, now. If I cannot make you tell me 
the history of this vial, the /aw can. It has had poison of 
the most horrid kind in it. You shall not stir from this 
spot until I know all that you can tell about it. ” 

“Blessed Godl Jis’ as I ’spected !” cried the old 
woman, while an ashy paleness came out on her brown 
skin. *‘Ptsen/ I know’d it I Lord, I know’d itl” 

She seemed utterly to have forgotten the presence of the 
Indian, as well as his threats of detention. Only the vast 
horror of her discovery, or, rather, the realization of her 
prophetic fear, had any place in her mind. 

“Well, let us hear what you know.” 


62 


AMY'S DISCOVERIES. 


She stared at him in a bewildered way ; her thoughts 
went back to that silent night-watch when she saw the fatal 
liquid poured out and given her mistress to drink, not 
daring to breathe, far less to interfere or protest against the 
deed. Her savage instincts had sounded Mathew Croft’s 
nature, while more enlightened eyes saw only the outside 
of the platter.” 

She knew he would have strangled her on the spot had 
she confessed a suspicion of his work, or even a knowledge 
of the act in which he was engaged. 

Speak, I say! Why do you stand staring like an 
idiot? Tell me all about this vial at once !” 

*‘Neber! neber! neber!” she cried, in a frightened, 
solemn way, each time making her emphasis stronger. 

‘‘Then I shall hand you over to the police to be taken 
to prison, where you’ll be made to tell. ” 

At this Amy stood aghast. It was a phase of the matter 
that she had not considered — was wholly unprepared to 
meet. To incur for herself the vengeful wrath of Mr. 
Croft by such a confession as she must make to tell how 
she had come by that vial, and her suspicions concerning 
its dreadful instrumentality in her mistress’ death, were 
propositions that fairly staggered her. 

In her amaze and terror, she fell on her knees and en- 
treated the Indian to restore the fatal flask to her, and let 
her replace it where she had found it. Instead of comply- 
ing, he put it in his bosom, and informed her that she 
must go with him to the nearest police station, or be 


AMY'S DISCOVERIES. 


63 


forcibly carried thither. At this hen entreaties became so 
piteous that the Indian thought well to pursue some other 
plan with her before resorting to an arrest. He managed 
to quiet her violent agitation, and then said, kindly : 

“Whether you will or not, old woman, you are bound 
to testify to some one all that you know about this thing. 
I see very plainly that whatever crime has been done, you 
are innocent of any part in its guilt, and that in some way 
you are one of the sufferers by it. Now, your safest and 
best plan for yourself and all parties is to tell me, or some 
other reliable, clear-headed man, the whole history, and 
be advised how to proceed. Otherwise you may get your- 
self into dreadful trouble. As a slave, your rights in a 
court of justice are very scanty, and your wits not much to 
boast of. Come, make a clean breast of it, and I promise 
to stand by you, and see that no harm comes to you, if 
you are, as I believe, innocent.” 

After a few more such encouraging assurances, Amy did 
tell substantially, but in her own jargon, just what has 
already been narrated. 

“You say the body is to be deposited in the cemetery 
chapel until to-night, when it will be buried?” 

“Dat’s ’bout w’at I gathered from de ’rangements, boss.” 

The doctor was very silent and thoughtful for some time. 
Amy saw there was a serious question under consideration 
in his mind. At length he said : 

“Well, return to the boarding-house. Conduct your- 
self as if nothing was on your mind; keep out of your 


64 


AMY'S DISCOVERIES. 


master's sight as much as possible, and, when the family- 
all retire for the night, come back here to me. ” 

‘‘Fur sartin I will, boss,” said Amy, with grateful earn- 
estness; for she instinctively divined that some purpose 
inimical to Croft’s safety was formed in the mind of the 
Indian. 

He then allowed her to depart, assuring her that it was 
not in the least likely that Mr. Croft would ever attempt to 
look up the vial; on the contrary, he predicted that the 
gentleman would speedily evacuate those premises alto- 
gether. 

The Indian, who had acquired considerable knowledge 
of chemistry and the compounding of drugs while serving 
as errand boy to a drug store in his youth, and whose na- 
tive genius for the art of medicine had been assiduously 
cultivated by observation and such desultory reading as he 
could gain access to, had formed in his own mind a con- 
clusion of which he gave no hint to the mulattress. The 
woman who had drunk the contents of that vial was at 
that moment either a blackening corpse or not dead at all. 

An overdose of the poison would instantly kill and dis- 
color the victim — an underdose would induce a cataleptic 
sleep which so closely simulated death that the ablest anat- 
omist might be deceived by the appearances. 

Amy had emphatically stated that at the moment of 
being screwed up in her coffin Mrs. Croft had resembled a 
person fast asleep. 

The Indian drew a startling inference from that fact. 


THE INDIAN'S PATIENT. 


65 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE Indian’s patient. 

** Really, sir, I have every wish to oblige you, but I do 
not feel at all sure that I have any right to open the 
coffin of Mr. Croft’s wife, simply to satisfy the curiosity of 
a stranger. ” ' 

These words were spoken by the keeper of the cemetery, 
to whom a dark man had made a request to be allowed a 
sight of the corpse in the chapel awaiting burial. 

respect your feelings, Mr. Manton; but when I 
inform you that I am one of the officers of the Board of 
Health, and that I have reason to suspect in Mrs. Croft’s 
case the presence of an epidemic disease, which I must 
ascertain in order to set forward proper precautionary 
measures against its spreading in the city, I think your 
hesitation will yield to that argument. Here are my 
papers. ” 

**Of course, sir. I’ve nothing more to urge against it — 
only, if you think there may be contagion from the dead 
body, I would thank you much to excuse me from opening 
the coffin. I’ve a large family, sir, and may convey the 
bad air in my clothing. ” 

The dark man smiled ; here was a chance he had not 
counted on. He said, carelessly : ^ 


66 


THE INDIAN'S PATIENT, 


“I don't think you have any need to apprehend danger; 
yet, as you say, a large family must be considered, sir. 
Just give me a wrench to manage the screws with, and I'll 
make my examination without assistance. Yet, as you 
send me there alone, I suppose you'd as well not mention 
the fact to the husband or friends ; it could do no special 
good, and would only harrow their feelings. Moreover, 
you might be charged with neglect of duty in sending me 
alone. " 

“Rest assured I’ll say nothing about the matter, sir." 

“ Possibly it might be as well for you to stand guard at 
the gate there, to see that no one comes near the chapel 
till I return." 

“It would be a good plan, though at this hour there 
isn't likely to be any one about the grounds. No harm 
to be careful, anyway. " 

While the officer of the health commission took his 
way, through the fading evening, to the little edifice at 
the further extremity of the burial grounds, the keeper 
passed in an opposite direction to guard the gate-way from 
intruders. It was not yet quite time to lock them for the 
night. 

Half an hour elapsed before the health officer was seen 
emerging from the chapel. He walked first to the newly- 
made grave, which waited to receive the remains of the 
poor lady who had died so suddenly the previous night, 
then came forward at a slow pace to join tbe keeper at 
the gate. 


THE INDIAN PATIENT, 


67 


** Well, sir, see any bad signs about the body?” 

The health officer shook his head ominously, and then, 
looking round cautiously lest some bird of the air might 
hear and carry the matter, he said, under his breath : 

Typhus! but don't breathe a syllable of it, as the whole 
town will be in a panic. I think it is only a sporadic case, 
and that prompt use of disinfectants about the locality will 
suffice to prevent any spreading. The sooner the body's 
put in the ground the better.” 

‘‘Sexton's to be on hand at seven; mighty near that 
hour now. Mr. Croft, with the minister and friends of 
the family expected, start at half-past. Ah ! yonder's a 
carriage now.” 

“In that case. I'll stop over and see the obsequies 
through,” said the health officer, who then withdrew into 
the keeper's lodge, quite out of sight 

In due time he managed to mix, unobserved, with the 
small assemblage of friends who gathered in the chapel 
awaiting the arrival of the clergyman and the chief 
mourner, Mr. Croft These important personages arrived 
in due time, and the funeral solemnities were then per- 
formed with the utmost decency. 

“Dust to dust!” and the falling earth on the casket 
echoed the sad oration, so simple yet so expressive of that 
last condition of our mortality. The summer stars came 
out, as tenderly smiling through the cloudless ether as if 
pain and death were nowhere known upon the earth they 
blessed with their rays benign and pure. 


68 


THE INDIAN FATIEJ^T. 


And finally poor Rachel was left to her long sleep in 
the strange soil among strangers. 

* 3|e * * ♦ ♦ 

A little after midnight of that same day, the Indian 
doctor opened the door of his shop to admit the old 
mulattress. 

‘‘Well, Amy, what of your master?'' 

“ Jis' as you say, bo5S, he neber come a-nigh dat room. 
He done move from de house 'ready.” 

‘ ‘ Where has he gone ?” 

“ Put up at one of de hotels, sah. He tell Miss Rowe 
dat she mus’ 'scuse him, but his heart could not stan’ 
de 'stress ob sleepin' anoder night in de house whar sAe 
died.” 

“Are you sure he has gone no farther than the hotel ?” 

“Oh, he ain’t lef' de town yet, but I not sure he will 
be in it much longer. ” 

“Are his books and effects still in his rooms at the 
boarding-house ?” 

‘* Yes, sah. He ain't move nothin’ yet.” 

“Could you manage to get me into these rooms with- 
out disturbing the family now?” 

“ Tink I could, boss. De door ob de settin'-room opens 
down on de garden by one little flight o' steps, an' I’s got 
de key to da^ door in my bosom dis minit. ” 

‘ ‘ Good ! We'll go at once. ” 

The Indian stepped back into the small room that 
adjoined his shop, and Amy heard him bolt the shutters 


THE INDIAN'S PATIENT. ^ 69 

securely. He then said a few strange words to a great 
mastiff that lay on the threshold between the shop and 
the bedroom, after which he motioned Amy to go on, and 
then locked the shop door after them. 

As the nurse had said, the entrance into the rooms was 
simple enough after the street watch had been safely 
evaded, and, luckily for their purpose, late arrivals at a 
boarding-house do not attract too much notice. 

The Indian left his shoes in the garden, and moved 
about the chamber so stealthily as to make no sound. 
Amy kept guard at the outer door while he made his 
inspection of the place. 

First he proceeded to a minute examination of the 
various articles upon the table and washstand, where medi- 
cines and other things in use about the sick-room were 
collected. 

Nothing had yet been changed, and nothing of a sus- 
picious or illegitimate character met the searching eyes of 
the Indian doctor. Each and every object was closely 
scrutinized and carefully smelled. Last of all he took up 
a small piece of surgeon’s sponge that hung by a thread 
on one end of a towel-rack. 

It was now quite dry, but on applying it to his delicate 
nostrils, the Indian made a grimace. Ever so faintly, yet 
unmistakably, the sponge gave out the same odor that 
clung more powerfully to the empty vial which he had in 
his bosom. It was an odor that no one who had once 
inhaled it, after learning its fatal properties, could forget. 


70 


THE INDIAN'S PATIENT 


He remembered that Amy had told him of seeing Croft 
wash the vial and the glass with a sponge. This caused 
him to look about for the glass from which the poison 
had been administered ; it was nowhere to be found. He 
inquired of Amy in a whisper concerning it; she sup- 
posed it may have been removed by some of the family. 

Find it in the morning if you can, and bring it 
tome.” 

He had already put the sponge in his pocket, and was 
passing through the outer room on his way to the door on 
the garden steps, when the sight of a very curious old 
book in black letter type, lying open on a table which was 
well littered with other books, pamphlets, and papers, 
attracted his eye. He took the candle from Amy’s hand, 
and placing it near the time-stained, half-ragged book, 
began to turn its leaves. It was in some language quite 
unfamiliar to his sight. He asked Amy if she had ever 
seen her master reading that book. She said she never 
had noticed what books he read, and that she did not 
remember having seen that special volume before. 

Whether from its unusual age and appearance, or from 
the fact that it was in a strange language, that book 
arrested the Indian’s interest very powerfully. He turned 
from it to a large, well-filled book-case, where he found 
many scholarly volumes in the ancient and modern 
tongues, but these gave him no concern. 

He went back again and again to the rusty, worn book 
on the table, Amy was watching him like a cat, and now. 


THE INDIAN'S PATIENT. 


71 


as he bent once more over the dark page, she stepped close 
to him, and whispered : 

Wha' make you no tek *em wid you ?’' 
must leave no traces of any visitor here; it would 
be missed, and a search made. It is not time for an 
investigation yet,” he said, as he reluctantly left the table. 

The woman took up the volume, and, thrusting it into 
his hand, said : 

You tek ’em. I’ll tell dat I flung it in de fire wid 
the res’ ob de trash dat I’ll burn up here in de mornin' 
’fore anybody’s up. ” 

The Indian’s face lit with pleasure at the ingenuity of 
the suggestion, and he adopted it forthwith. He now put 
out the candle, and then bade Amy open the door and 
let him out. 

He whispered to her at the step : 

“Come to me again to-morrow night, and mind no 
one sees you. ” 

A little earlier than on the previous night, the Indian 
had the low signal from his dog that a visitor was at the 
door, and immediately after Amy rapped softly. 

“Well, how did you manage the lie about the book?” 

“Lord, boss, I thought one time dat book was ’bout to 
cost dis ole nigger’s head ! He look same like de very ole 
Satan when he miss it from de table, and ax me who tek 
it. I spoke up spry, an' say ; 

“ *Sorr)% sah, but dat old tore up book had fell on de 
floor 'mongst a pile of waste paper and trash, and 1 


72 


THE INDIAN PATIENT, 


Jis" geddered dem all up an^ burnt dem in de kitchen 
furnace. ' - 

'Stead of gittin' mad at dis, he look very much satisfy, 
and say : 

‘All right; it wasn't much account; but you had no 
business to burn any book without first asking questions. ' " 

“ Where is now 

“Gone to Saint Louis, he ^qys. He tole Miss Rowe 
to tek care of all his tings till she heard from him 'bout 
dem." 

“And you?" 

“Oh, I’se b’long to myself now. Ain't I tell yer 'bout 
de poor chile givin' me my freedom an' five hundred dollar 
jis' afore she died ?" 

“Did he consent?" 

“Sartinly ; he draw'd up de deed. I got it here wid de 
money. Tink he's berry willin' to git rid of me. We 
alius did 'spise one anoder from de fus' minit he started 
to court my poor young missus. Now he’s got all her 
property, wot you s’pose he want wid one ole creetur 
like me?" 

“What do you mean to do with your freedom and your 
money?" 

“Injoy 'em de bes’ I kin. She tell me fur go to my 
ole people in Mississippi. Lord knows uf I’d eber fine 
dem now. Spec dey done scatter to de four winds by dis 
time. Niggers don't stay togedder long arter dey ole 
owners dead an’ gone. " 


THE INDIAN PATIENT. 


73 


** Suppose you let me employ you for a few weeks. I 
require a servant now to wait upon one of my patients, 
who boards with me, and you understand nursing. I'd 
give you fair wages." 

“Tank you, boss. I would’nt hab no 'jections to such 
'rangement till I look round me a bit. Now dat /ie*s gone 
off, dis place suits me as well as any. " 

“Very well ; you may come with me at once, and take 
my place by the patient. I need sleep. " 

He led the way through the back room of the shop to 
a somewhat more commodious one above it, which they 
reached by means of a narrow stairway inside of the lower 
room. 

A dim taper light burned in the wide, open fire-place, 
and on a low cot bed in a corner of the decently but 
poorly furnished chamber, a woman lay soundly asleep. 

The mulattress crept softly to the bedside, and, with a 
low cry of horror, fell to the floor flat on her face. 

The woman in the bed was Rachel Croft, sleeping as 
sweetly as a young child. 


74 


RACHEL, 


CHAPTER VII. 

RACHEL. 

An interval of five months has elapsed since the night 
old Amy fainted with fright beside the resurrected body of 
Rachel Croft. 

We enter once more the small upper chamber over the 
back room of the Indian doctor’s shop. 

It is a cold, raw winter’s day, the Gulf winds bite 
shrewdly, but within the little room it is warm and bright 
enough to keep one from absolute dejection. A heap of 
burning coal in the open fire-place makes the atmosphere 
soft and mild ; and cheap, but gayly-flowered chintz cur- 
tains at the two small windows and round the bed, give an 
air of cheerfulness to the humble place. 

Despite this, the figure of the woman who sits in the 
ingle nook, with her feet on the fender, and her eyes star- 
ing out through the tiny panes at the wind-blown clouds 
that are leaden and lowering, looks as if an eternal winter 
had settled upon her, morally and physically. 

The hair that is closely drawn from her brow is quite 
dull and gray, as if the coloring matter had suddenly 
dried up at the roots, and, though her face is not old, it 
seems to have been blighted so utterly that a smile could 
not make its sunny way over those frozen and pallid 


RACHEL, 


75 


features. Only the vivid and startling brightness of 
deepest black eyes indicate the remains of a passionate 
life, which must once have quickened the stony face. 

On the opposite side of the chimney an old woman sits 
in a low rocking-chair crooning a subdued air to the baby 
that she is hushing to sleep. But the little one will not 
rest, and the nurse rises and lays it on the pale woman's 
lap, to whom she says, coaxingly : 

‘‘Come, honey, let de chile nus' little bit; she must be 
hungry — she won't go to sleep." 

The lady made no motion to notice or to nurse the fret- 
ful infant, but continued to gaze out at the dismal rack 
over the face of heaven. 

The nurse removed and fed the baby from a bottle, after 
which it went to sleep and was placed in a cradle beside 
the bed. 

With a long, compassionate look at the silent figure by 
the fireside, the nurse left the chamber and descended the 
narrow stairway just outside the door. 

After a short space other steps were heard remounting, 
and the Indian entered the room with a bowl of some 
smoking broth in his hand. 

He placed himself on a chair near to the lady, who had 
not given any sign of observing his entrance. 

“My dear, you will drink a mouthful of this good 
broth for me, won't you ? I made it with my own hands. 
It is excellent" 


RACHEL. 


76 

want nothing,” said the lady, in the cold, far-away 
tone of a speaking automaton. 

‘‘ But all the same you will take it for my sake, and the 
child’s.” 

“Always the same thing ! Why should you care about 
me or the child ? If you had left his work alone, both the 
baby and I would have been far better off. I shall never 
forgive you for meddling with what my husband saw fit 
to do.” 

“Poor soul I Well, you know I did it for the best. 
Don’t be hard on me. Will you take the soup, dear ?” 

“Yes, anything to be rid of you, and left to myself. 
Give it to me.” 

She took the bowl, and drained it at a draught, as if it 
had been some nauseous dose, then impatiently thrust the 
vessel toward him. 

He received it meekly, and regarded her with infinite 
pity ; he knew she was half mad, and in nowise respon- 
sible for her speech. Yet it seemed to hurt him. He 
rose to go away, when she caught at him, and said, with a 
sudden burst of energy : 

* ‘ Stay ; tell me all about it again. Begin at the begin- 
ning, when he said, ‘ My love, it is time for your sedative 
dose.’ Don’t leave out a word — not a syllable of the 
story. Mind, I know it so well. I’ll be sure to catch you 
if you miss a word.” 

Heaving a long breath, the Indian sat down to repeat 
the oft-told tale. It was, of course, only the minute and 


RACHEL. 


77 


detailed account of the horrid tragedy of which she had 
been the victim, which he was required each day to tell 
over to Rachel Croft. 

The first time he related it to her was just after she re- 
covered from the long illness in which she had lain for 
weeks subsequent to her rescue from the dreadful fate of 
being interred alive. She was sane then. 

The Indian went through with his task, as the patient 
mother who tells the ghost or fairy tales to a tyrannical 
child, who must always hear it exactly the same way. 

It was all circumstantially linked together, as we know 
the story up to the moment when the health officer inter- 
viewed the cemetery-keeper. 

The Indian was saying : 

“Of course, my dear, the health officer was me. I 
wanted to see what the poison had done to you, and I was 
just as much prepared to find you black in the face, and 
dead, as I was to see you in the trance. Luck favored 
me, and I had ample opportunity to take you out of the 
coffin and carry you into the organ loft till I could get a 
chance later to fetch you away. ” 

“But the empty coffin?” she interrupted, impatiently. 

“Oh, we’re coming to that. I hid you well away in a 
dark corner behind the organ, and then ran out through 
the vestry-room to where a pile of loose rocks lay near a 
mound in process of construction — an ornamental mound, 
you know, for the ferns and ivy to grow over. ” 

“Yes. Well, and you ” 


78 


RACHEL, 


“Gathered an armful of the rocks till I had about the 
same weight as your body, and I fixed them in such a 
manner as there’d be no danger of their rolling. I put 
moss between them, you know. ” 

“And then the ” 

“And then the place got very dark, and I stepped out 
to look at the grave they had made for you. ” 

“Ah! the sweet, clean, quiet new grave that I should 
have rested in so sweetly, as my love had put me to sleep, 
if you had only let me alone 1” 

He seemed quite used to this lament in this place, for 
he paused till it was over, and then went on : 

“I managed to stay and mix in with the crowd who 
came to the funeral. I saw them bear out the coffin, and 
ower it in the grave and cover it up, and heatd the final 
hymn sung over the mound of yellow earth.” 

“And my love cried over the grave of his poor, tire- 
some wife that he had put to sleep?” 

“Yes, he wept very bitterly 

Here the Indian turned his face away that Rachel might 
not see its angry look. It always made her furious to 
think that he or any one blamed Mathew Croft for poison- 
ing her. She smiled at his last words with a sort of 
ecstasy, as she murmured : 

“Wasn’t it worth dying for to have his tears fall for me? 
You see he had to poison me — it was the only way to be 
rid of me ; but he was sorry for me because he could not 
love me.” 


RACHEL, 


79 


‘"Well, they all went away; but I stopped at the 
keeper’s lodge, and asked him to let me keep the key of 
the cemetery gate that night, so that I might return and 
sprinkle the chapel with disinfectant acid, and that no bad 
air might be shut up in it. He agreed very readily. I 
waited until it was late and dark, and then I hired a small 
light cart, and drove myself out to the cemetery, and 
through the carriage drive in the grounds, close up to the 
chapel. It was easy enough to manage. I knew you’d 
not wake for hours into the next day, if then. " 

* ‘ And you laid me on some blankets in the bottom of 
the cart?” 

*'Yes, and got you home all right about midnight — a 
little before Amy came to report.” 

“Then you told Red Lion to take care of me while 
you went away with Amy?” 

“Yes, and he always does what I tell him. The next 
evening, about midnight, you came to your conscious- 
ness; but I put you at once to sleep again — a healthy 
sleep this time, for I was afraid to let your poor brain 
work until the fumes of the poison had all vanished from 
it You became very ill in spite of all my care, and lay 
for weeks with brain fever. I didn’t much hope to save 
you — much less the little one that was yet to see the light 
But God took care that my remedies should prove 
effectual. That makes me know Hes got something very 
ipaportant for you and the child to do yet in this wicked 
world.” 


So 


RACHEL, 


“Ah, yes, I remember you said, the first time you told 
me all about it, that God had saved us to punish Mathew 
Croft’s crime. But you see you didn’t tell the truth. He 
shall never, never come to harm through me or mine 
while I have life to shield him from it. You know you 
had to swear eternal silence about all you knew in order 
to keep me from starving myself to death ; and you know, 
too, that the day you utter a word that can bring the least 
suspicion to him, I will surely kill you, myself, and the 
child — as surely as God exists, I will I’^ 

“Hush, dearie — be quiet; you know I’ve taken th^ 
oat, and will keep it. ” 

He spoke soothingly, for she was growing very much 
excited, as she always did when she thought or spoke of 
any one’s harming her husband. 

Perhaps this was all miserable madness, as her preserver 
thought it ; but even granting this, there was sad method 
in it. The wretched woman, whose soul was all passion, 
and whose heart was all flame, had spent all of both 
elements upon her love for this man. In the whole span 
of her existence she had felt no joy but that he had given 
her. She would, by a voluntary act, have died by torture 
only to give him one hour of the rapture she felt in loving 
and serving him. 

And that love was so humble, and that service so 
abject, that it claimed no response, no reward. Only to 
see him, to hear him, to touch him, that, was enough. - 
Yet he had been good, and gentle, and veiy patient with 


RACHEL. 


8i 


her. He had suffered her to inundate him with her wild, 
idolatrous love, and had never shrunk away from her, nor 
chided, nor seemed to hate her presence. 

Remembering all this, and knowing now that he hid in 
his breast a hate so deep, a loathing so intense that it 
drove him to murder her in order to be rid of her 
goading devotion, she said in her heart : 

Another man would have neglected and ill-used me 
^ — would have made me suffer all the humiliating tor- 
ments of his abhorrence and contempt. But this man 
bore with it, and was tender and kind until he could 
endure it no longer, and then he gently and mercifully 
put me to sleep, and his last word was a tender one. 
Shall I harm him or let him be harmed for this? Nay, I 
would let him trample my heart out a thousand times, 
if it were possible, but never, never harm him 

More than once had Uriel, the Indian doctor, overheard 
such like soliloquies from **the poor maniac," as he 
called Rachel ; and well he knew how worse than vain it 
would be for him to combat it in her present diseased 
condition of mind. 

But he had faith in nature. 

He felt that by sheer force of the youth and vitality 
in her frame, she would some day recover the normal state 
of her faculties ; and he was one of those unaccountably 
benign and selfless beings that seem to be sent by God to 
give the world assurance that divinity and humanity con^ 
tinue to abide together on earth, despite the unfriendly 


82 


RACHEL. 


atmosphere with which egotism, and greed, and lust, and 
vanity, and passion have filled our planet. 

Uriel did good because he loved good. Every suffering 
atom of life was as a part of himself that suffered. He 
devoted himself to the healing art because it gave him an 
ecstasy of soul to ease the pain of even a dog. For a 
long time in his youth he would accept no more remu- 
neration for his services and prescriptions than just suffi- 
cient to keep him from want; but after a while he saw 
that there was so much misery that his drugs could 
not alleviate, but which money might. He therefore 
altered his plan a little, and charged the poor nothing, 
the rich a good deal, for his skill. Thus he managed to 
equalize things somewhat. His own life he never altered ; 
he continued to live in the little suburban shop, with 
its two rooms below and two above, where he began 
his practice as a quack physician and druggist. Some 
people called him a miser; but this was because they 
knew he made a great deal of money, and did not know 
how he spent it 

The singular case of Rachel Croft was precisely one 
to awaken all the grandest traits of a character like 
Uriels. It turned the man into the providence. Here 
was a strange, solemn work for him. Heaven would show 
him, step by step, how it was to be done ; he would sim- 
ply wait, and act as he felt bidden. He was a professor 
of no special faith — that is to say, he followed no sect— 
but his religion was broad as God’s uiiiverse, and reached 


RACHEL: 


83 


to God’s throne, where it lay prostrate. His creed was so 
simple that a lisping child could learn and understand it. 

“God made me; He is my Father; He loves me; He 
has a use for me; I believe in Him, and I trust Him 
to teach and to guide me. ” 

That was the whole sum and substance of Uriel’s 
theology; but it was enough to make him almost an 
angel. 

Yet he could be a stern man with unworthy people. 
Sweet as a May wind at noon-time to the simple and igno- 
rant, he was implacable as fate to the evil-doers and 
hypocrites in high places. 

Hence the struggle that he had with himself to curb his 
hatred and resentment toward the cold-blooded villain 
who had martyred the soul of this weak woman — who 
had placed himself in God’s stead to her adoring heart, 
and then murdered her with all the infamous calculation 
of a fiend. 

But, for all this, Uriel was content to wait. He never 
yet had waited in vain ; all dark places had been made 
light to him in the past — it would be so now, he was 
sure. 

Meantime Heaven had sent these poor waifs to him, as 
wrecked barks are blown to a haven by winds one cannot 
trace to their source nor follow to their bourne. It is 
enough that they have come, and that the haven is safe 
and deep. 

More than this, the shadows were lengthening on 


84 


RACHEVS COMMANDS, 


Uriel's pathway, and his hearth was lonely ; he had only 
the dog to comfort his long evenings, when the day was 
done. 

He might have had wife and children ! Oh, yes, he 
might, dear reader; but he had waited" for these, along 
with other blessings, and God had not chosen to send 
them. 

For poor Rachel the Indian now conceived the affection 
that a strong nature feels for a weak, lorn, helpless crea- 
ture that has mutely claimed protection and kindness. 
She had been as a foundling laid at his door, and as such 
he had taken her to his affectionate care. Then the poor 
baby came— the child its father had willed should never 
look upon the sun. Both were sacred trusts from Heaven 
to Uriel's great heart. He took them in and sheltered 
them, and verily he had his reward. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Rachel's commands. 

A part of Uriel's prophecy came to pass. Health of 
mind came back to Rachel's disordered faculties; the 
dull, unnatural apathy passed from her, and the dear 
duties of maternity exerted their wonted influence. But 
her bodily health remained always feeble. One thing 


RACHEL'S COMMANDS, 


85 


changed not — her wifely allegiance to her husband — her 
womanly devotion to his safety rather than to her own 
happiness. 

Under a changed name, she lived in the house of the 
Indian quack. He told the neighbors a very plausible 
story of his widowed niece having come to him, poor and 
foot-sore, from a long journey, one night, from a distant 
State — that he had given her a home with him, and would 
keep her as long as she would stay. 

Nothing ever happened to create the least mistrust of 
Uriel's story; and so changed and aged was Rachel, that 
Mathew Croft himself would not have known her. 

By all kinds of management, Rachel continued to follow 
her husband's career. Never did she lose sight of him 
or many weeks together, for Uriel's untiring exertions to 
feed her poor, lonely soul with this the only food it could 
take, obtained through newspapers and secret correspond- 
ence, the accounts of Croft's changes of residence. 

Not more than five years elapsed before she found out 
that he had established himself in the practice of law 

at , Florida, and from that period she received very 

regular accounts of his increasing reputation at the bar. 

No rumors of his former ministerial profession followed 
him, and never a breath of any attentions of his to women 
reached the straining, watchful heart of the poor, loving 
wife, who felt that the one blow she could not bear would 
be the knowledge that some other woman had filled the 
place she had so awfully vacated in his life* 


86 


RACHEL'S COMMANDS, 


For the rest — his successes, his prosperity with the 
money he had gained by her supposed death, his great 
popularity in his new career — were all so much balm to 
her suffering heart. What did her woe matter if his life 
was happy and fortunate ? 

It was all very weak, and miserable, and slavish, no 
doubt, for her to live like this, and worship the hand that 
had given her the death-stab. But I suppose God knew 
best when He made a few women in this fashion. They 
seem to keep the idea of imperishable fidelity alive. 

In the meantime, the child that had made its way 
through such strange perils into life, grew, and strength- 
ened, and developed, like a hardy wild flower that no 
keenness of wind nor chilliness of frost can blight. 

The strangest of all things connected with the little 
girl. Faith — such was the significant name that Uriel had 
given the baby when her mother refused either to name or 
to love her — ^was that she was beautiful. 

The intense homeliness of her mother, the absolute 
ugliness of her father, had seemed to coalesce in such a 
manner as to produce the lusus na/urce of perfect fruit on 
warped and rugged boughs. 

Faith Hilary was the girl’s name. 

Uriel had some latent romance in his nature, and it 
pleased him to find a harmonious conjunction of sounds 
to make up the name of this child of Providence. As for 
Rachel, she seemed wholly indifferent on the subject then, 
and foi long months after. 


RACHEVS COMMANDS, 


87 


But the time came when all her womanhood turned to 
motherhood, and she merged the passion of the wife into 
the tenderness of maternity. Faith was the representative 
of the one grand and perfect sentiment of her life. Her 
soul bowed down and worshiped the father and the child 
in one. 

This atom of her husband’s being that she had carried 
in her breast, and nourished on her heart’s blood, now 
ascended the empty throne in her life, and reigned there 
with an absolute despotism. 

The thought came often to Rachel’s heart that, some 
day, when her feeble life quite flickered out, she would, 
in a dying confession, reveal her identity, and leave this 
beautiful angel as her vicegerent to comfort and bless the 
declining years of him whose love she had failed to win. 

Until then little Faith must take her chances, for not 
even the consideration for her child’s future ever gave her 
a thought of marring her husband’s, by the announce- 
ment of her own existence. 

Uriel had enough and to spare, and he never wearied 
of telling Rachel that the white day in his life was that 
which gave him little Faith to love and cherish. 

It needs not that all the history of these years in Uriel’s 
home be set down here. They were very uneventful up 
to the time when Faith Hilary reached her sixteenth year. 
The joyous dawn-time, while still the dews of childhood 
glistened on the swelling flower-bud, shed on Faith’s 
beauty all the ineffable flush and charm that mark the 


88 


RACHEVS COMMANDS, 


approach of womanhood. Nothing fairer, or brighter, or 
more glad could be imagined, than this slender, dainty, 
star-eyed girl. So lovingly had she been sheltered from 
all the cares of life, so utterly unbiassed by social con- 
ventionalities, of which she knew nothing, that she was 
like a free and happy bird that flutters round the parent 
nest, taking no thought or care for the morrow. " 

One morning when she went as usual to join Uriel at 
his work among the little flower-beds in the back garden, 
she found him not. 

‘^Surely he cannot be asleep after sunrise I” she said, 
for she knew that he rose with the lark. 

She ran to his room to see if he had returned thither 
for any purpose ; the door was closed, and all was quiet 
within. She returned softly, and there sat Uriel in his 
old leathern chair beside a little table, on which the lamp 
still burned. An unfinished letter lay open under his 
hand, his arm lay motionless on the other side of it, his 
head reclined upon the rusty cushion, and Faith said, 
laughing : 

“The dear old father has written himself to sleep. Ill 
wake him with a kiss.” 

She bent her rosy mouth upon his forehead, and started 
from the touch of him with a shriek of pain and fear. 

The old man would never wake to hers nor any mortal’s 
touch again. He was quite dead. 

* ♦ ♦ He He 3»e ♦ 

. Rachel and her child were now alone in the world, the 


'RACHEUS COMMANDS. 8g 

mother as helpless and ignorant of life and its cares as 
the gay, light-hearted Faith. Uriel had died without 
warning or preparation ; but, years ago, he had willed all 
he possessed to Rachel and her daughter. With care and 
economy it was enough to keep them in comfort, but in 
such thriftless hands the modest sum of Uriel's fortune 
would soon disappear. It was. not long before Rachel 
became aware of this fact, and also of one still more 
appalling. Her delicately strung organism had suffered 
so severe a shock in the old man's death, that her health 
failed rapidly. She knew that her tenure on life was pain- 
fully slender, and anxiety for Faith's future only aggravated 
her condition. 

It was thus with them when Rachel received one of 
the Florida papers, which she took regularly. Often for 
months together they brought her no more than the mere 
casual mention of Mr. Croft's name among the current 
items of local reports ; but to her this was life. 

With the usual eager tremulousness she tore off the 
wrapper, addressed to Uriel as formerly, and sought 
through the columns for the beloved name. It met her 
hungry gaze in the following paragraph : 

*‘On the morning of the 20th this community was both 
startled and pleased by the announcement of a marriage 

ceremony, performed in the Church of , between a 

distinguished citizen, Mr. Mathew Croft, and the lovely 
and gifted heiress of Lucerne, Miss Leda Morgan, whose 
wonderful charms are ‘beyond compare.' It is rumored 


oo 


J^ACHEVS COMMANDS, 


that the engagement was one of long standing, as Mr. 
Croft has been for years the friend and legal adviser of 
the bride’s mother. The lonely condition in which Mrs. 
Morgan’s recent death left the young lady, reasonably 
accounts for the suddenness of the nuptials. The bridal 
pair will reside at the beautiful country seat of Lucerne, 
in the vicinity of this city.” 

Rachel read the paragraph through, though each word 
of it seemed to transfix her soul anew in a trance of 
horror. Her wasted fingers clutched the paper in a cold 
and rigid grasp; her gaze staid fastened on the page as 
if unable to stir from it, while all the life in her pale face 
gathered into a dull red flame that leaped up into the great 
black orbs, making them glare like the eyes of a wounded 
tigress at bay. 

All these weary years had she hushed her pain and 
buried her life in obscurity, and prayed and yearned for 
this man’s happiness while her own heart starved, only 
that she might furnish him the means to fill her place 
with a woman whom he could love as wildly as she had 
loved him. 

And here was her reward 1 

At last the demon of revenge, so long stifled by the 
angel of constancy, broke from its leash and possessed the 
woman, mind and soul. 

In the wild and fierce reaction, the hate wherewith she 
hated him [was greater than the love wherewith she had 
loved him. 


RACHEVS COMMANDS, 


91 


There is no horrid fiend in Hades more rapacious than 
an injured and insulted wife’s jealousy toward a beautiful 
woman who, ignorantly or otherwise, fills the place from 
which she has been cast forth in loathing. 

Never before had poor Rachel been so keenly and 
terribly aware of her unloveliness and deficiency in all 
feminine charms as now, when her frenzied thought pic- 
tured a ravishing woman securing the passionate love of 
that man, whose coldest caress had made earth a heaven 
for her craving heart. 

Chaos usurped the empire where patient love and loyal 
devotion so long had reigned. All that was left in her of 
life or feeling concentrated in the fell resolve to blight and 
blast the future of those two, whose lives her slavish con- 
stancy had joined. 

Hours after, when Faith returned, late in the evening, 
from a ramble along the shore, she found her mother 
gone. Old Maum Amy, now almost sunk in decrepitude, 
informed the girl that her mother had been obliged to 
go away for two or three days, but desiied that Faith 
should remain tranquil with her faithful nurse until she 
returned. 

Thus it came to pass that Rachel Croft had appeared, 
like a spirit of evil omen, to the newly-wedded pair, in 
the manner we have already seen. 

Standing before them in the grim, calm potency of her 
baleful mission to them, she had related substantially what 
is here recorded. 


92 


R ACHED S COMMANDS. 


She closed her stoiy with these words : 

*'And now, Mathew Croft, you behold in the woman 
who would have died a thousand deaths to save you from 
harm or sorrow, the future scourge — not of your crime of 
murder, but that, to her, far baser sin of infidelity to the 
memory of the wife whose fortune and whose life fulfilled 
the dreams of your ambition. Having rid yourself of her 
despised presence, you might at least have respected her 
idolatrous devotion too much to sin against it thus.” 

By this time Croft had gathered his faculties together 
sufficiently to attempt a denial of the awful charge, which 
had caused Leda to shrink away from his side with fear 
and loathing unspeakable. With all the cold insolence 
at his command, he said : 

‘‘Madam, I think that we have listened to the ravings 
of a maniac quite long enough. J know not who you are 
or whence you came ; but I do know that you are hope- 
lessly mad. If you have method enough to take yourself 
away as you came, in God’s name, do it; if not, I shall 
be forced to the disagreeable necessity of handing you 
over to the police as a fit subject for the insane asylum.” 

“ Ha ! ha ! ha I Even you dare not attempt so black a 
villainy, unless you are prepared to have the indisputable 
proofs of your crime published to the world, and your 
beautiful young consort shown to society as an adulteress, 
bought with the price of your deadly sin. You do not 
suppose that I came here merely to tell my stoiy and 
depart, do you ?” 


RACHEVS COMMANDS. 


93 


**What, then, have you come for?” 

‘*To set your life as wide apart from this fair woman 
as you set mine from yours. To put a barrier, more deep 
and ghastly than the grave, between you, and to compel 
you both to make the future of my child T 

*^What can you mean?” cried Croft, the cold sweat 
gathering on his brow, and the pallor of a great fear on 
his face. 

* * I mean this ; to hold you twain together in the un- 
hallowed bonds of an unlawful union, and to make you 
the instruments of securing to my daughter the place and 
pri^eges in society that are her dues. Henceforth, you, 
Mathew Croft, are only the custodian of my fortune, in 
trust for my child ; and you, madam, the medium through 
whom she shall enter and adorn the bright world of which 
you have been a queen. Fail, either of you, in the faithful 
and punctilious discharge of these offices, and reap the 
consequences in instant exposure and ruin.” 

*‘How dare you utter such commands Xome, madam, 
whatever right you may have to govern the conduct of 
this man !” exclaimed Leda, with proud disdain. 

‘^Disobey those commands, if you like better to take 
the scoffs of your world, as the dupe of a murderer and 
bigamist. The alternative is simple enough.” 

Rachel's tone was so quiet and so intensely controlled, 
that it awed them both into silence. 

At length Croft said, falteringly ; 

‘'WhM do you require ?” 


94 


RACHEUS COMMANDS, 


^‘That you shall immediately fetch your daughter and 
mine to this elegant home, as its heiress and mistress; 
that she be so received and respected by both of you; 
that she never learn the dreadful story of her mother's 
wrongs ; and that you make her life one long holiday of 
pleasure, until one worthier to guide and guard it shall 
join her heart and hand, together with my fortune, which 
shall be at once settled on her, in her own right, and 
uncontrolled by any prohibitions or conditions. 

*'On these terms I will retire into an oblivion profound 
as that which has so long infolded my life. Not even my 
child shall know that I live; but with sleepless ey^ of 
love and vengeance will I watch and guard her fate from 
my hiding-place. 

**Once I longed for death, and expected it; but now I 
feel that I shall live to fulfill this mission to you, and to 
her future. In the instant that you shall violate a single 
clause in these conditions, I shall emerge from the depths 
of my seclusion, and bring down the doom that I have 
power to inflict or to withhold. 

“ I wait your answer.” 

She had seemed to rise and expand with each utterance 
of her suppressed passion, until now she stood above 
them towering and stern as the Angel of Retribution, 
whose task she had essayed. The glitter of her midnight 
eye flashed over them, baleful as a red comet’s light, and 
they cowered and shrank from her, awed by the mystical 
forces that they felt emanating from that slender, shadowy 


RACHEDS COMMANDS, 95 

figure, from which all the grossness and mortality had 
been worn by long suffering. 

What she had said, they felt she was fully prepared and 
competent to perform, and that no human power could 
turn her from her resolve. From first to last, Leda had 
felt an invincible conviction of the truth of Rachel's 
ghastly story ; and the aversion which had been increasing 
toward her husband every hour since that in which she 
gave him her hand in betrothal, now assumed a violence 
of loathing and detestation, mingled with fear, that grew 
out upon her face so vividly as to leave Rachel no appre- 
hensions on the score of the future relations between this 
couple, that she thus chained together by a refinement 
of cruelty, and whom she would drive before her will to 
the execution of her designs as a plowman drives his 
yoked cattle. 

No response to her demand came from their dumb lips ; 
they were too spelled by terror to speak. 

The hush was broken by the sound of a man's tread 
upon the gravel walk. 

Simultaneously they turned to look upon the new- 
comer. 

A low moan of anguish and despair burst from Leda's 
lips, for there before her on the threshold stood Gordon 
Warren 1 


96 


MR» CROFT'S WARD. 


CHAPTER IX. 

MR. C RO ft’s ward. 

Excuse US a few moments, Warren,” said Mr. Croft, 
as he rose, and, with great embarrassment, greeted his 
junior partner, to whom he made a confused motion of 
conducting him within the house. 

Warren had fixed a steadfast gaze full of the coldest 
contempt upon the shivering Leda, and from her his 
rapid glance flashed over the other two. He saw at once 
that he had made a most untimely intrusion upon a scene 
full of agitating interest to the three persons engaged 
in it. 

In reply to Mr. Croft, he said, quietly : 

‘ ‘ Do not let me interrupt you, sir. I will retire to the 
lake until your present business is dispatched. I bring 
information of much moment to our interests, and, not 
knowing when you might come to the office, I thought it 
best to call upon you here without delay.” 

Quite right, my dear fellow; and I shall be very 
shortly at leisure. Meantime, if you don't mind having a 
cigar in the lime grove by the water. I’ll join you there 
directly.” 

This colloquy had taken place at the archway over the 
steps of the piazza, where Mr. Croft had met and halted 


Mr. croft^s waru. 


97 

his visitor. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he had 
not permitted Warren to acknowledge the presence of the 
ladies, or to speak to his wife ; yet he must have observed 
the keen, direct look that the young man sent into Leda’s 
face. She, meanwhile, sat helplessly staring at him in a 
bewilderment of shame, and pain, and horror, at the 
enormity of her own involvement in the dark meshes of 
these other lives. 

‘ ‘ I will wait for you in the grove with pleasure, sir, but 
you will first allow me to offer my congratulations to Mrs. 
Croft, my felicitations to you both. ” 

With these words he stepped past Mr. Croft, and lightly 
crossed the intervening space until he stood immediately 
before Leda, with his fine, shapely hand extended for 
hers. His face was hard and cold as it was possible for 
flesh to be, and the clear, white light from his unflinching 
eye gave a more intense power to features at all times too 
stern. 

As Leda placed her reluctant fingers on Warren’s cool 
palm all her white face turned scarlet, and she shook with 
emotion so violent that Warren hastened to release her 
hand. With a formal bow to the silent figure in black 
crepe that stood curiously watching the face of Leda and 
the visitor, he retired from the piazza, and, at a leisurely 
gait, took his way to the lake-side. 

*‘Will you have the goodness to walk into the libraiy?’» 
said Croft to the two women. 

will have nothing further to say or do with this per- 


98 


MR, CROFTS WARD. 


son/’ answered Leda, haughtily, and she swept past 
Rachel into the hall on to her own room. 

‘‘Will you follow me?” asked Croft of the motionless 
woman, who had not shown a sign of life from beginning 
to end of this scene, except in the swift, bird-like shifting 
of her glance from one countenance to the other. 

Still silent, Rachel followed Croft into the library. He 
fastened the door securely, and remained in conversation 
with Rachel during the space of an hour ; after which she 
came out, and, re-entering the vestibule of the hall, de- 
sired Croft to take her through the entire building. She 
said: 

“I wish to become familiar with the future home and 
surroundings of our child. ” 

He winced painfully as she pronounced the word ‘ ‘ our. ” 
She had emphasized it pointedly. He made no demur, 
but conducted Rachel through all the chambers, not ex- 
cepting the one in which Leda had shut herself. 

“By what right do you intrude upon me?” exclaimed 
Leda, angrily, as Croft held open her door for Rachel’s 
survey of the apartment. 

Croft went up to her and whispered a sentence in her 
ear, at which Leda shuddered and grew silent, while 
Rachel calmly scrutinized every portion of the luxurious 
chamber that had been freshly and extravagantly refitted 
in honor of the bridal occasion to which it was devoted. 
Rachel remembered with an insufferable pang of jealous 
rage that no such compliment had been paid to her own 


MR. CROFrS fVARD. 


99 


nuptials, and that it was her fortune which had been laid 
at this beautiful woman’s feet. She cast one long look 
upon Leda, who lay upon a richly-carved couch lined with 
primrose satin. There was that in Rachel’s eye which 
seemed as though it could sear and scorch the soft, volup- 
tuous beauty till it should be shriveled as a leaf that has 
passed through flame. Leda shrank from that malignant 
ray of fiery hate, as if in reality it burned her, and her re- 
coiling from it seemed to please Rachel, for her stiff white 
lips parted in a phantom smile more ghastly than can be 
described. 

*‘I desire that my daughter shall occupy this room” said 
Rachel, with an imperious decisiveness. **Do you un- 
derstand ?” she added, seeing that Croft glanced at Leda, 
.making no reply. 

He bowed his head in assent. 

Rachel then moved on down the stairway, and passed 
directly to the hall door, where she paused a moment to 
say : 

*‘You will lose no time about removing our daughter 
at once to this place according to the understanding we 
have had, always remembering that if any accident hap- 
pens to her, or to me, the information and proofs neces- 
sary to convict you of two crimes — murder and bigamy — 
are lodged in hands , that will be swift and sure in bringing 
you to justice. ” 

Croft turned paler yet at her ominous threat, and sim- 
ply bent his head. 


lOO 


MR. CROFrS WARD, 


Rachel went slowly away from the house, and walked 
back to the city, a dreary and dismal black shadow moving 
through the sunlight. 

sK * * * ♦ ♦ ♦ 

Some weeks have elapsed since the honey-moon of the 
bridal pair at Lucerne was so suddenly eclipsed by the un- 
timely apparition of the other wife. 

Very marked changes have been wrought in the house- 
hold at Lucerne. 

The upper circle of society in have been sum- 

moned to welcome within its charmed orbit a new star — 
Miss Hilary, whom Mr. Croft presents to Madam Grundy 
as his ward. 

All that Faith knows concerning the change in her for- 
tunes is that directly after her mother’s departure Eastward 
a strange gentleman came to her, bringing a letter from 
her mother, commanding her to place herself with con- 
fidence under the protection and charge of Mr. Croft, 
whom she had appointed Faith’s guardian, and with whom 
Faith would reside in future, or, at least, during her 
mother’s absence in Europe, whither, Rachel stated, that 
she had gone for the restoration of her health at the Ger- 
man baths. 

Strange as such a proceeding would have seemed in an 
average mother, it scarcely astonished Faith, who had a 
life-long acquaintance with the eccentricities of her moth- 
er’s singular and moody character. 

Uriel had accustomed the girl to pay little heed to 


MR. CROFTS WARD. 


XOI 


Rachers long spells of depression and reticence, always 
attributing them to the ill-health which was only too ap- 
parent in her. 

Faith was instructed to take her old nurse with her to 
Florida, and to make herself quite happy in her new 
home, where she would receive regular tidings of her 
mother. 

In the fresh young nature of the girl there was a won- 
derful elasticity and adaptability that rendered it easy for 
her to accept any changes or chances of life with a grace- 
ful acquiescence. Therefore, the transition from her hum- 
ble home and common surroundings caused no serious 
shock in Faith’s life. The beautiful new home, the at- 
mosphere of culture and elegance, the regal beauty and 
patrician air of her guardian’s young wife, which met her 
in Florida, seemed only the fulfillment of some day-dream 
born of a fairy legend. 

When she first lay down to sleep in the lovely primrose 
chamber, she felt as if it must be only a vision that the 
morning would dispel. But, as day by day dawned on 
her healthful slumbers through the roseate mist of filmy 
draperies, she grew to feel at ease and quite familiar with 
her changed condition. 

A governess and music-masters had been employed to 
take Miss Hilary’s education in hand. Faith’s mental 
training had been as irregular as her social. Uriel had 
instructed her in a thousand things that young girls are 
not expected to understand, but left her deplorably igno- 


102 


MR. CROFrS fVARD. 


rant of those branches of learning in which society de- 
mands that a young lady shall be accomplished. 

But, being only sixteen, with a bright, receptive mind 
and ready comprehension, it promised to be no difficult 
task to amend the errors in Miss Hilary's early educa- 
tion. 

What did puzzle Faith far more than foreign verbs or 
studies in music and drawing, was her anomalous position 
in the family at Lucerne. Received as she had been with 
distinguished consideration, assigned the best apartments 
in the establishment, and generally deferred to as a person 
of importance, she nevertheless felt conscious of a com- 
plete alienation from the sympathies of the master and 
mistress of Lucerne. They were scrupulously but coldly 
polite and attentive to her, though always constrained and 
distant. But she seemed not to wonder at this fact, seeing 
how utterly cold they were to each other. 

Mr. and Mrs. Croft seemed never to meet nor speak to 
each other save at the times of formal reunion in the 
drawing-rooms or at meals, and then only in the most 
ceremonious manner possible. 

Mr. Croft was most of the time absent at his office in 
the city, and when at home he appeared always absorbed 
and distrait, or painfully reserved. 

Mrs. Croft was proud, silent, haughty, and often con- 
temptuous toward every one about her save Faith, and to 
her never more than frigidly polite. The slaves evidently 
stood in awe of both master and mistress. 


MR, CROFT'S WARD, 


103 


Faith soon came to feel that the air of Lucerne was 
strangely chill and ungenial, and sometimes she fancied 
it full of mystery. 

The governess was a more cheerful feature in the men- 
age. She was a sprightly and alert little New England 
woman, with very thrifty, cheery ways, and a friendly dis- 
position that always met one half way. Faith soon be- 
came much attached to Miss Draper, who was her con- 
stant companion. 

One other member of the household oppressed the girl 
singularly. This was the housekeeper. 

Mrs. Foster was a tall, slim creature, with the blackest 
of hair over the palest of brows. Her features were as 
expressionless as if they had been carved in chalk. She 
wore dark-green sj)ectacles like goggles, that fitted close 
round her eyes, which, she said, could not endure either 
light or air. Also she wore across her brow a wide, green 
silk shade, that fell like a mask over the upper part of her 
face; and, whenever she emerged from the dim light of 
her own room, she was sure to throw a vail over her head 
and face, because of a peculiar sensitiveness of her skin to 
the action of light and air. 

Add to these eccentric costumes a taciturnity that 
amounted to moroseness — a reluctance to answer the 
simplest question — an absolute avoidance of all compan- 
ionship — and we have a pretty accurate description of the 
housekeeper at Lucerne. She was of a piece with the 
general exceptionalness of the whole establishment. 


104 


MU. CROFT'S WARD. 


Mrs. Foster was seldom seen to exchange a word with 
her employers ; the servants stood in wholesome dread of 
her, though she never seemed in any way harsh with 
them, only her grim, silent ways frightened them. 

Toward Faith, the housekeeper manifested the same 
passive repulsion with which she chilled off every one 
about her. It was seldom that their paths touched at all. 

‘‘What do you think ails Mrs. Foster?’' inquired Faith 
of her governess, as they were saying good-night. 

“Screw loose here, I would say,” replied Miss Draper, 
touching her forehead significantly. 

“Poor soul I Do you know that I have the queerest 
feeling whenever I see her? I fancy that she has some 
dark and terrible sorrow. I would like to be kind to her, 
and try to comfort her, but she seems to shrink away from • 
notice, as if it hurt her physically. ” 

“Go to sleep, my dear, and let Mrs. Foster and her 
queer ways alone,” said Alice Draper, as she kissed her 
lovely pupil’s brow, and left her to her repose. 

Hours later, as the midnight moon shed its pale ra- 
diance through the light draperies about Faith Hilary’s 
couch, a slender, dark figure bent above the girl’s fair 
head, a wan hand softly touched the rich clusters of curls 
that flowed over the pillow, and, moving noiselessly in 
her sleep. Faith reached up her bare, snowy arms as to 
some figure in her dreams, murmuring, softly and lov- 
ingly : 

“ Mother 1” 


GORDON WARREN^ S PUPIL, 


105 


CHAPTER X. 

GORDON warren’s PUPIL. 

Mrs. Croft’s deep mourning for her mother rendered 
anything like participation in general society quite out of 
taste, but in consideration of his ward, Mr. Croft insisted 
on entertaining in a quiet way. 

Not unfrequently small companies of the city folks 
dined or supped at Lucerne, and, unconsciously to her- 
self, Faith Hilary was becoming a feature in the social 
world of . 

Chief among the habitues of Lucerne was Mr. Croft's 
partner, Mr. Warren. To him Faith’s guardian had in 
trusted the care of the girl’s equestrian exercises. 

* * Every young woman should ride well, ” Mr. Croft had 
said some month’s after Faith’s arrival; *‘and as I haven’t 
the time to teach you, my dear, I will put you in charge 
of the best horseman and most prudent instructor that I 
know of anywhere. Mr. Warren will make you a fearless 
rider, without permitting you to take any risks, as a less 
autocratic rider might do. ” 

^'Oh, you are quite right in terming him * autocratic,’ ” 
laughed Faith, as she turned her sunny face to the grave 
countenance of her appointed master of horse. *'He 
never lets any one have a will of their own within his 


I 06 GORDON WARREN^ S PUPIL, 

jurisdiction. He has been teaching me to row on the 
lake, and Fve learned how implacable he is." 

'‘It is necessary to be that with one so utterly ignorant 
and careless of danger as yourself, Miss Hilary,” replied 
Warren, with an amused expression, as his quiet eye 
glanced over the slight, girlish form, and lingered half 
patronizingly on her sweet, candid face, where every feel- 
ing of her free heart played fearlessly. 

“Somehow it is hard to fancy that any danger can exist 
where you are, Mr. Warren, you seem so entirely equal to 
everything. ” 

“There’s a most unequivocal tribute to your conceit, 
Gordon,” said Mr. Croft. 

“Indeed I did not intend to convey the idea that he 
thinks himself so all-sufficient, but that he appears so to 
other people,” protested Faith, flushing brightly at the 
implication attributed to her remark. 

‘ ‘ Have no fear that I shall misinterpret your kind 
words. Miss Hilary; nor does your guardian, but he 
wants you to take some lessons in repartee. You are far 
too honest and sincere for a society belle, and we must 
teach you how to say what you don't mean, and to 
disguise what you do mean.” 

“ For shame !” cried Faith, ruefully. “You are not in 
earnest about that, I know. ” 

“Ask Mrs. Croft if I have not stated the proposition 
TO 05 t exactly,” said Warren, with his half-cynical smile, as 


GORDON WARREN'S PUPIL. 


X07 


he lifted a straight, challenging look to Leda, who sat by 
listening, but taking no part in the talk. 

*‘Is that what society demands of women, Mrs. Croft?” 
inquired Faith, timidly raising her glance to the proud, 
reserved face of her guardian's wife. 

‘‘It is what society renders necessary for women. Miss 
Hilary.” 

Leda’s tone was biting and cold, but there was a flash 
of strong feeling in her eyes as she returned Warren's 
glance. 

“Then I'd much rather not go into society if one must 
learn to be untrue. But I cannot see why falseness is ever 
necessary. ” 

“Nor do I think thaty^?« will ever find it so. To para- 
phrase an old proverb, ‘to the true all things are truel 
And you must not take my jest so seriously,” said Warren, 
who felt condemned for having provoked such remarks in 
the presence of Faith. 

It was as if he had flung something impure into the 
waters of a translucent fountain, and he despised himself 
for having used the girl’s guileless words as a means of 
giving Leda a thrust. 

As he uttered the last sentence he rose and crossed the 
room to where Faith sat before a table, touching up a 
little drawing in her sketch-book. 

He leaned over the back of her chair, and saw that she 
was finishing a sketch of a bit of scenery near the lake 
where she had passed the previous afternoon with him in 


ioS GORDON WARREN* S PUPIL. 

the boat, which was moored at the foot of the knoll 
she had drawn. 

*‘Why did you copy that spot? There's nothing strik- 
ing in it, I think,” said Warren, still bending over her 
head. 

“No,” she answered, without pausing in her work. 
“Nothing striking, as you say, in the spot itself, but 
one likes to keep mementoes of places where one has 
been happy.” 

She spoke with the sublime naivete of a young child. 

A tender half smile lit up Warren's serene face; he 
leaned yet a little nearer to the drooped head “rippling 
over” with soft, dark curls, and asked, gently : 

“Were you happy there?” 

“Oh, yes, very; how could I help it? The evening 
was so infinitely sweet and loveljjr, and you were telling 
me of so many grand and beautiful things. ” 

“Children are easily made happy,” said Warren, laugh- 
ing softly — he meant it to tease her, but Faith answered 
quite demurely : 

“That is true ; but I think even a grown person would 
have enjoyed last evening as much as I did. ” 

“Then you do not consider yourself a grown person?” 

“How can I when I’m only sixteen?” 

Warren laughed again, and said : 

“Well, suppose you put down the pencil and come out 
for another short pull across the lake? The twilight will 
last long enough for that.” 


GORDON WARREN'S PUPIL, 109 

**How charming! Of course I will come!'' she cried, 
joyously, and, pushing away her drawing, she ran out to 
get her wraps. 

Warren turned himself so as to have a full look at 
Leda, whose gaze he had felt burning through the air dur- 
ing his low converse with the girl. Mrs. Croft’s face was a 
curious study at the moment that his eyes rested on it. 
She still held her book up, but her glance swept over the 
page to read far different characters than its printed lines. 
The beautiful soft curves of her mouth had become set in 
tense lines, and a passionate gleam darkened the luster of 
her dilating eyes. As his look met hers her face became 
violently suffused, and she turned it abruptly from him 
toward the window by which she was seated. He went 
out of the room, leaving the husband and wife to a tete-a~ 
iete — if they pleased. After a space of silence Mr. Croft 
dropped his magazine, and said, sardonically : 

“Are you planning a match for these two, Leda?" 

“ What on earth put such an idea into your head?" ex- 
claimed Mrs. Croft, with an almost savage surprise. 

“Only the fact of your having him out here so con- 
stantly. It wouldn't be a bad idea either; the sooner we 
are rid of the girl the better, I should say. " 

“I hope you don't imagine that I shall concern myself 
in the least about her, whether she stays or goes? She is 
a subject of profound indifference to me.” 

“ It is more than she appears to be to our young friend, 

Warren." 


no 


GORDON WARREN^S PUPIL. 


“ How absurd to think he could feel the slightest 
interest in a crude, immature thing like that 1” said Leda, 
contemptuously, returning to her book. 

** I don’t see why, I’m sure. The child is a rare bit of 
femininity, and bright withal. It is true Warren is old 
beyond his years, and richly cultured for a self-made man, 
but it is very common for men of distinguished talent to 
prefer child-like women. Then, as he is poor, Faith’s 
prospects may stimulate his interest in her personal 
charms. ” 

Leda made no answer, but read on in silence, for Mr. 
Croft dropped the subject and left the room. 

There is nothing more harassing to one’s soul than 
to have another person frame with speech a fear or a 
doubt that one has been tr)’ing to argue away from one’s 
mind. 

It was thus with Leda, who experienced a feeling 
of fierce resentment toward Mr. Croft for having uttered 
the very idea that had just set her own brain in a flame of 
jealous apprehension. 

Croft had only stated a simple fact when he ascribed 
Gordon Warren’s constant presence at Lucerne to Leda’s 
insistence. 

It is true she had the grace to include some others of 
their visitors in her invitations, but she managed to have 
Warren accept them oftener than any one else, and War- 
ren’s professional association with the master of Lucerne 
made his intimacy at the house a matter of course. 


GORDON WARREN'S PUPIL. Ill 

Leda was perfectly aware of Mr. Croft’s ignorance of 
any previous relations between herself and his partner, 
* and Faith's position at Lucerne gave her ample excuse for 
drawing her former victim once more within her snares. 
Her hope of achieving this purpose was flattered into con- 
fidence by Warren’s ready acceptance of the position 
offered him as a friend of the family. 

Not a word had ever been exchanged between them 
in reference to the past; and the young man seemed 
utterly to ignore his previous acquaintance with her — 
maintaining always the courteous demeanor which his 
relations with her husband required, but never, by word 
or sign, manifesting a wish to pass the bounds of simple 
politeness. Yet, on occasions like the one just described, 
Warren would fling a barbed arrpw into Leda's soul, 
that she knew well had been steeped in some poisoned 
rem embrance. 

What the precise nature of his present sentiments to. 
ward her were, she could not divine; but her woman's 
vanity preferred to construe his fngid reserve into wounded 
love, or at least the rancor of disappointed passion. Nor 
could she bring herself to believe that her beauty's sway 
over his fervid nature, whose depths she had once stirred 
so powerfully, was ended. 

On the contrary, she fancied that his avoidance was but 
a sign of his internal strife with a hopeless passion. 

It was now her purpose to convince him that her heart 
was still accessible, though her hand was not 


112 


GORDON WARREN^ S PUPIL. 


Honor had no place in her calculations, either for 
herself or him. She felt herself poised between two over- 
mastering feelings — hatred for her husband, and a wild 
infatuation for Warren. 

Besides this, her experiences since her marriage had 
rendered her utterly reckless with regard to the future. 
She felt herself involved in a tissue of calamitous possi- 
bilities that might at any moment culminate in her social 
ruin ; and she deliberately determined on hazarding her 
fate upon a venture which would be no less disastrous 
than the perils that encompassed her, but which presented 
to her the prospect of at least a season of enjoyment. 

Whatever came of it, she was fully resolved to win back 
the man she had forsaken for prudential motives. 

As to Warren's purpose, it was simple enough. His 
true and chivalrous manhood recoiled in disgust from the 
cold-blooded barter which Leda had made of herself to a 
man whom, of all others on earth, she should have 
scorned, had she been aware of facts confided to him by 
her mother. Of course, her ignorance of these facts ex- 
onerated her from any more heinous offense than the 
sacrifice of her heart and her womanhood to the baseness 
of social vanity and worldly ambition. He guessed very 
accurately what arguments Croft had used to induce her 
to marry him with such indecent haste, and he despised 
her for yielding herself to them. So utterly had this con- 
tempt extinguished the flame of his former passion for her 
beauty, that he now abhorred the delusion which had 


GORDON WARREN^ S PUPIL, 1 13 

made him a slave to so gross an infatuation for a woman 
false to her own soul. 

As much to prove to her his entire emancipation from 
her influence, as for any other reason, he frequented 
Lucerne, not dreaming that he incurred the risk of occu- 
pying the position of suitor to Mr. Croft's young ward ; 
still less that Leda cherished such shameful designs upon 
him, which his presence near her only nourished. 

To him. Faith was so much a child, so frank, so 
natural, that any sentimental relations with her never 
entered his thoughts. 

Her soul, limpid as a summer brook, showed him 
no spots through which the glad sunlight of perfect inno- 
cence did not penetrate. Besides, there were several other 
men, younger and gayer, more suited to a girl’s fancy in 
every way, who were aspirants to Faith’s favor, and whose 
attentions seemed to please her more than his own. 

Her sweet, child-like ways interested him, without 
doubt ; but her joyous, heedless, sunny nature was too far 
apart from the sober calm of his own, for that intense 
sympathy that must form the ground-work of love. He 
would as soon have thought himself in love with a bird, 
or a flower, or a child, as with sweet little Faith Hilary. 

As Warren passed out from the drawing-room into the 
hall. Faith met him at the foot of the stairway, all closely 
wrapped for the excursion on the water. 

‘'Are you sure this flimsy white thing round your head 
^nd throat is wari^ enough f” asked Warren, taking up an 


GORDON WARREN'S PUPIL, 


114 

end of the snowy web of zephyr wool that Faith had 
daintily twisted, turbanwise, about her head, and gathered 
under her throat, so that her fresh face glowed like a pink 
hyacinth peeping out of a snow-bank. 

“Yes, quite warm enough ; you know the exercise will 
prevent me from feeling the chilliness of the evening. 
Let’s hurry or we shan’t have much of a row. ” 

She tripped on before him as she spoke, her delicate 
arched feet glancing out from the edge of a short skirt of 
crimson, above which a gray serge tunic was looped. 

“You give a man no chance to be dignified when he 
waits on you, Miss Hilary. How do you suppose a fellow 
of my weight and inches is to keep up with that butterfly 
pace of yours?” 

“Well, what’s the use of being so dignified when one 
is in quest of pleasure? Why not you run, too?” 

“That would be in the last degree unprofessional and 
unbecoming a barrister whose aim and end is to wear the 
ermine some day. ” 

“ Do you think of becoming a solemn member of the 
judiciary ?” 

“Don’t I look solemn enough to think of it?” 

“Yes, indeed; but sometimes I fancy there is more 
sunshine in your heart than one catches on the surface 
of your nature, and I imagine there are other positions 
that would suit you as well as or even better than the 
bench.” ^ 

''For instance?” 


GORDON WARREN^ S PUPIL. 


”5 


** Statesmanship. You’d be quite grand and imposing 
as a senator ; then you have such a splendid voice for an 
orator — clear and full like a clarion, you know.” 

‘‘That is very sweet flattery, but I'm afraid your judg- 
ment is rather fanciful. ” 

“Flattery!” repeated Faith, stopping short in her rapid 
walk, and looking up into Warren's eyes reproachfully. 
“Flattery means empty compliment or insincere speech. 
Do you think I'd be guilty of either?” 

“No, honestly I do not ; but you can be mistaken.” 

“What is there to be mistaken about? I have eyes to 
see, and ears to hear. ” 

“Yes, of course; but we judge of what we see and 
hear more by our prejudices than the actual value of the 
subjects under analysis.” 

“You mean to say that because I like you, I think you 
have a grand presence and a beautiful will, and that if I 
did not like you I should be of a contrary opinion ?” 

“Well, almost that.” 

“What a mindless little creature you must think me!” 
said Faith, walking on with a musing, dejected air that 
was wholly absurd because so unaffected. 

Warren laughed outright — he seldom laughed to be 
heard, and, when he did, the air vibrated for some dis- 
tance round him, as to a sonorous peal of bells. Waves 
of that melodious gamut of sounds reached Leda’s ear 
where she sat watching Warren and Faith go down the 
lime walk to the lake. 


ii6 GORDON warren^ S PUPlL 

‘*He must be very happy to laugh like that,” she 
thought 

' i And happiness, under existing circumstances, was the 
very last condition that she expected or desired for 
Gordon Warren. She felt bitterly angered against him 
for being able to laugh, and enraged with Faith for 
provoking it 

*‘What can he see to amuse him in that silly gosling 
of a girl ?” she said, under her breath. 

After a few moments she went to her chamber to dress 
for dinner. 

Some people from the city were expected to pass the 
evening at Lucerne. 

An hour later Warren and Faith came up from the 
lake, talking as gayly as on their way thither. On re- 
entering the house, Warren stopped in the dark library 
to light a cigar, while Faith went on up stairs to make her 
toilet. 

Standing at the window on the piazza, Warren perceived 
a tall, black figure glide out from the lime walk by which 
he had just returned. This person hurried along the edge 
of the open lawn, and entered the garden by the side way 
that approached the house obliquely, and wound under 
the library windows. Shifting his stand to a side window, 
Warren watched the stealthily moving figure till it passed 
just beneath him ; he saw that it was the eccentric house- 
keeper, Mrs. Foster. 


SPWNING a IVEP, 


117 


CHAPTER XL 

SPINNING A WEB. 

Leda was not a woman who could rest passive under a 
condition of things that threatened to set at naught her 
most passionate feelings and thwart her secret desires. 

Nor was she blind to the fact that a fresh, bright, true- 
hearted creature like Faith Hilary — the very antithesis of 
her own character — was precisely the person to appeal to 
the nobler sentiments of a man with Gordon Warren's 
innate love for truth and purity, in the same measure as 
her own voluptuous fascinations had enthralled his sensu- 
ous being. 

She knew instinctively that in the moment when those 
finer chords were struck in Warren's soul, their music 
would forever silence the siren notes to which his senses 
had listened a little while ago. 

Too wise to attempt any overt or direct interposition of 
obstacles to the growing intimacy between them, she 
nevertheless determined that a prompt barrier should arise 
to set Warren and Faith apart effectually. 

Such women as Leda Croft are born with a subtle 
genius for strategy. It is part of their wonderful power 
over others that they divine situations and execute move- 
ments by intuitions almost unerring. 


ii8 


SPINNING A WEB. 


A week later a party of guests were invited to dine at 
Lucerne, in honor of the arrival of one of Mrs. Croft's rel- 
atives — Mr. Julian Vernois — a very distinguished-looking 
but rather blase man of thirty-five, who enjoyed a some- 
what equivocal reputation in the gay circles of the Cres- 
cent City, of which he was a native. The social position 
of this wealthy and high-born creole was the only unques- 
tionable feature connected with his history. 

To this gentleman's escort Faith Hilary was assigned by 
the hostess when dinner was announced. 

Leda appropriated the arm of her husband’s partner. 

“I wonder that you are willing to expose your lovely 
young ward to the attractions of so dangerous a flirt as 
Mr. Vernois,” said the lady who occupied the seat next 
Warren, on Mrs. Croft's right hand at table. 

Leda raised her superb shoulders in accompaniment to 
the sarcastic smile that played on her face, as she replied : 

*‘You cannot imagine, Mrs. Dalton, that Julian Ver- 
nois would engage in a flirtation with an insipid girl like 
that — a mere child 1 Remember, he has served his ap- 
prenticeship in Paris and at Baden. ” 

‘ ‘ Oh, very true ; but these lady-killers are omnivorous 
creatures — ‘all's fish that comes to their netl’” 

“There you are mistaken, my dear friend. One must 
be somewhat accomplished in the art of flirtation to en- 
gage the interest of such men as Julian.” 

“In that case, madam, I would say that Mr. Vernois need 
not lack ‘foeman worthy of his steel' in your vicinity.” 


SPINNING A WEB. 


II9 

It was Warren who uttered the last remark, in a low 
significant tone, as Mrs. Dalton turned to answer a ques- 
tion from her other neighbor. 

A deep flush suffused the soft peach-bloom of Leda's 
beauty, and she said, gently ; 

“You are severe, and therein unjust to me. If you 
but knew the truth — the dreadful, bitter truth — that un- 
derlies the seeming falseness ” 

She halted abruptly. Her lip was quivering, and she 
seemed about to lose her self-command utterly. 

Warren hastened to say 

“I pray you say no more, madam. I confess my fault 
in provoking the retrospective. What is done is done, 
and the past is worse than nothing to either of us. ” 

Immediately addressing his attention to the other lady 
beside him, Warren left Mrs. Croft to the opposite man on 
her left, and the dinner passed without further incident 
worthy of being recorded. 

Nevertheless, Leda’s allusion to that fiery epoch whose 
flame had seared through his being, and whose heat still 
smoldered at his heart, awoke strange sensations in War- 
ren’s breast. 

Deep as was the contempt he felt for the woman who 
could wed one man for mercenary advantage, with her 
heart inflamed by passion for another, there yet lingered 
with him a certain feverish pain in remembering the en- 
chanted days when his soul lay at her feet and pulsed in 
her hand if it but touched his own, 


120 


SPINNING A WEB. 


Though he had turned coldly from her, and was appa- 
rently engrossed in conversation with Mrs. Dalton — a gay 
little society woman — Warren’s glance reverted furtively to 
the beautiful face that had lain for one delirious moment 
on his breast. 

Perhaps it was the recollection of that moment that 
called a fervid flush to his brow, as he withdrew his eyes 
from Leda’s averted face to answer some commonplace re- 
mark of Mrs. Dalton. Or was it the undertone of keen 
suffering that he divined through the smiling mask that 
Leda wore for the world’s eyes? 

He fancied to-night, for the first time since the day he 
saluted her as Mathew Croft’s bride, that the soft outlines 
of her beauty had sharpened a trifle, and that the feverish 
light in her eyes seemed more like the glow of fierce pain 
than the radiance of pleasure. Then her tone had been 
thrilled through with a keen agony when she uttered that 
passionate reference to the past. 

With the sensitive chivalry of a large-hearted man, to 
whom the sins and the sorrows cf womanhood ever appeal 
with irresistible pathos, Warren began to feel that perhaps 
he had judged Leda too hastily, and that it might be, as 
she intimated, that some invincible force of which he had 
not guessed may have been urged upon the girl to drive 
her to this hasty marriage. 

In the midst of such disturbing fancies as these, he 
succeeded in sustaining a disjointed conversation with 
those immediately around him until all the formalities 


m 


SPINNING A WEB, 12 1 

of the meal were over, and the ladies had left the dining- 
room. 

Declining to participate in the protracted libations of 
his host and the other gentlemen, Warren lit a cigar and 
went out alone upon the terrace to smoke it. The won- 
derful luster of the southern stars rendered the moonless 
night so softly clear that the glitter of dew-drops and the 
gleam of the orange blossoms shone through the dark- 
ness, as Warren passed along the grassy slope that edged 
the building, making his way to an arbor, covered with 
yellow jasmine vines already in full bloom, and distilling 
their rich perfume from the golden bells that swung 
dreamily in the light breeze. 

There were rustic garden chairs in the arbor, and here 
Warren seated himself. Through the opening under the 
vine-wreathed archway he could see a light from the win- 
dow of the room which Mrs. Morgan had occupied during 
her last illness. 

The hours he had passed beside the pale sufferer came 
vividly back to his thoughts, and he remembered with a 
remorseful pain how he had lately ignored his promise to 
the dying woman — that he would be ever a tender and 
considerate friend to her child. Beyond this memory rose 
the strange confession of the widow concerning him who 
was now the rightful guardian of her child's life. 

A tangled skein of destiny, truly, seemed the tissue of 
circumstances in which Gordon Warren found himself 
meshed. Amid such troubled reflections the time passed 


SPINNING A WEB, 


I2t 

until his cigar had burned away to the stubby end that he 
now cast from his fingers out among the violets that bor- 
dered the alcove. 

The sound of music and laughter came to him from the 
drawing-rooms, and he arose from his reclining posture on 
the garden bench to return to the company. A dark 
figure occupied the door-way of the arbor, a white face 
gleamed above the dense crepe draperies. 

It was Leda. She did not stir from her calm pose, 
where she leaned one shoulder against the light-fluted 
column of the arbor. 

‘*You seemed so happy that I would not speak to you 
until you chose to move,” she said, as Warren rose and 
stood before her 

**Have you been here long?” he asked, a little sternly. 

**Yes, long, if we let propriety measure the time — ten 
minutes or more by the chronometer.” 

Her tone was a trifle mocking, but tremulous, too, as if 
with strong feeling suppressed. 

'‘Allow me to take you into the drawing-rooms, mad- 
am. You should not be here.” 

“You must not think I came seeking you. Indeed I 
thought you were still in the dining-room with the others. 
Nevertheless, I am glad to find you here. I must speak to 
you some time, and this will be as good as any.” 

She spoke with the perfect self-possession and savoir- 
voice of a woman of the world, and moved forward as if to 
take her seat within the arbor. 


SPINNING A WEB, 123 

** Pardon me, Mrs Croft, if I decline to remain here 
with you. I have no right to do so.” 

She knew him too well to resist his protest against the 
imprudence she had so calmly suggested. She smiled a 
little as she said, slipping her hand through his arm : 

had forgotten that the dear old days were gone, and 
their privileges with them. Yes, you are right, we must 
go in.” 

There was something at once sad and humble in her 
manner of taking his reproof, and her mention of ‘Uhe 
dear old days” made his heart beat loud. Her hand was 
resting somewhat heavily upon his left arm, and she 
seemed to be aware of the accelerated pulsations that sent 
the man's rich, red blood torrentwise through his healthy 
veins, for she, too, became tremulous, and caught her 
breath nervously as if to keep back a sigh. 

Neither of them spoke again until they stood upon the 
low veranda, with the light from the lamp in the vestibule 
showing on them. Then Leda stopped, and, raising her 
eyes timidly to his, said : 

^ ‘ Let me speak now ; I think my heart will burst if I 
keep it locked any longer. See, the library is quite empty; 
let us stop in there for a few moments.” 

There was so much of suffering and of entreaty in her 
look and voice that he could /lOt bear to deny, though 
he shrank from compliance with the request. He said, 
anxiously; ^‘What gqpd can come of explanations or 
confessions now ? Silence is best.” 


124 


SPINNING A WEB. 


Maybe; but I cannot live on under the killing sense 
of your contempt — you may pity or hate me as you will 
when I have told you the truth, but I will not bear the 
wrong you do me now in your thoughts. I can see in 
your every glance that you believe me false and heartless.” 

He could answer nothing to this — she had correctly in- 
terpreted his thoughts. Without further resistance, he fol- 
lowed her into the library. 

Some of the gentlemen had joined the ladies in the 
drawing-rooms; their mingled voices blended with the 
lively music of Miss Draper's Bramra. 

Leda placed herself upon a low couch, deep in the em- 
brasure of a broad window. Warren did not take the seat 
at her side, but remained standing almost in front of her, 
lightly leaning one arm over the tall back of a carved 
chair. The light from a single lamp streamed through a 
green glass shade, making a moonlight dimness through- 
out the apartment. Leda's face seemed strangely pallid in 
this wan half-light. It was a story to touch the keenest 
sympathies of a strong, true heart that she told, with 
the painful emphasis of broken sentences and suppressed 
sighs. 

At the close of it she said : 

*'You had renounced and deserted me. He showed 
me my dead mother’s letter to him, expressing her hope 
and desire that I would become his wife. I was homeless 
and a pauper. What remained to me but this marriage ? 

je* ° 

Marriage! Oh, God, no! but a detested bondage more 


SPINNING A WEB. 


125 


horrible than the chains of a galley slave. Ah ! if you 
had not left me ’’ 

Here her voice broke into sobs, and she buried her face 
in the cushions of the couch. 

The situation was in the last degree perilous and pain- 
ful — at any moment Mr. Croft or some one else might 
enter the library. Abruptly to quit her presence, after 
the piteous confession she had just uttered, would have 
seemed brutally unfeeling — to remain and prolong the 
discussion of a topic so dangerous, savored of treachery. 

To Warren’s chivalrous nature there was torture of the 
keenest in such an aspect of affairs. 

Besides, the idea that his Quixotic renunciation of this 
superb creature’s love had precipitated her into the abyss 
of misery, in which he now beheld her writhing like a 
gorgeous serpent in its dark cage, stung him to the core 
of his generous soul. He would have given his life that 
moment to repair the wrong he had done her through his 
mistaken consideration for her welfare — ^yet what could 
any act of his accomplish now more than the more serious 
complication of an already hopeless mistake? 

He must have been less than the great-hearted man he 
was to forbear some attempt to assuage the strong pangs 
of anguish that he beheld this woman suffering, and, as he 
now believed, through his ill-judged act. He was very 
pale, and there was a solemn sincerity in his deep, low 
tones, as he said : 

^‘Heaven knows how honestly I sacrificed myself for 


126 


SPINNING A WEB. 


your good when I wrote you that letter. What you term 
desertion on my part was unavoidable. I had no option 
about leaving you. I would give my heart’s blood to alter 
or to help you bear this bitter fate.” 

Would you?” she asked, eagerly, and lifting to him 
her beautiful face, all wet with her passionate tears. 

“You cannot doubt it.” 

“You can help me bear it, and you alone — only let me 
feel that you do not hate and despise me for having given 
myself to this man whom destiny thrust upon me. Be 
kind to roe — be roy friend. Ah, if you knew my desper- 
ate need of your sustaining sympathy I” 

“It is yours, and all that the most devoted friendship 
of a true man can confer. ” 

“How I thank you,” said Leda, softly, as she rose, and, 
passing her hand through his arm, led the way toward the 
drawing-rooms. 

On reaching the hall, she motioned him to enter the 
parlors beyond, and a little while later she re-appeared 
among her guests with no other sign of her late stormy 
emotions on her face than a more brilliant bloom upon 
the delicate skin — a darker luster in her magnificent eyes. 


A MORTAL COMBAT. 


127 


CHAPTER XII. 

A MORTAL COM BAT. 

you please not touch my work in that way, Mr. 

Vernois?” 

It was Faith Hilary who thus gently rebuked the im- 
pertinence of the elegant, l^lase creole, Julian Vernois, 
who sat near her, languidly fingering the balls of bright 
Berlin wool that lay in a pretty basket on her lap. 

** Certainly, if it annoys you; but how sensitive you 
must be to mind it.’" 

Mr. Vernois stretched himself lazily back in the fauteuil 
that he had placed in such a position as to have his face 
to Faith and his back to the small company of guests 
who, with himself, were passing the evening at Lucerne. 
A sufficient period had elapsed since his first introduction 
to Miss Hilaiy for this accomplished man of the world to 
establish himself on a very easy and sociable footing at 
the villa. So equally did he divide his attentions between 
the beautiful mistress of Lucerne and the fair young crea- 
ture, with whose exquisite sensibilities he was evidently 
amusing himself at this moment, that he managed to 
keep himself free of any imputation tiiat could place him 
among Miss Hilary's special admirers. 


128 


A MORTAL COMBAT 


‘‘No; I doubt if I am particularly sensitive, but it 
makes me nervous to have my threads interfered with. " 

“Are you quite sure that is what you object to.?'' asked 
Vernois, his bold black eyes emitting a wicked, teasing 
expression, that called the swift blood to Faith’s delicate 
cheek. 

He knew perfectly that it was the freedom of the action, 
and the unavoidable contact of her slender, busy fingers 
with his intruding hand among her wools, that displeased 
the girl. Julian Vernois belonged to that class of social 
iconoclasts that make it their mission to instruct the sweet 
unwisdom of the innocent fledglings that modern mothers 
send forth, unguided, into the vortex of fashionable life, 
for any rude hand that wills to brush the original bloom 
from the delicate surface of womanhood. It gave him a 
fresh and intense delight to call the crimson flush to the 
pure, childish face of Faith Hilary — to kindle in her 
.dreamful eyes the unrestful glow of embarrassment, by 
such equivocal speeches as that he had just uttered, or by 
dropping into the pellucid depths of her calm soul some 
word of fervid compliment that would stir the slumbrous 
waves and break the rapt repose of her untried nature. ‘ 

Faith made no direct answer to his question, but said, 
as she lowered her face to escape the dark glow of his 
Eastern eyes that confused her, almost painfully : 

“Why do you like to worry me by doing things that 
you know I dislike?” 

A smile, ever so faint and fleet, crossed the soft, woman- 


A MORTAL COMBAT 


29 


ish curves of Julian Vernois' beautiful mouth as he watched 
the slight quiver of Faith’s drooped lids, and the change- 
ful color in her sweet young face. 

“How could I know you would dislike my touching 
your work? Moreover, I am not sure that I was con- 
scious of doing so. I suppose I was only obeying an 
impulse like that which makes one lift a flower to inhale 
its perfume, that one sense the more may be delighted. 
You can understand why I should love to touch any- 
thing over which those dainty, rose-tipped fingers have 
moved. ” 

There was not much besides empty compliment in the 
words ; but, accompanied as they were by the low and 
tender modulation of voice that Vernois employed with 
such consummate art when it pleased him to throw a 
subtle meaning into trivial speech, they filled little Faith’s 
guileless heart with a fluttering sensation — half of pleasure, 
half of embarrassment. 

She moved uneasily and colored violently under the 
rain of fervid glances that played, like burning sunrays, 
over her from those practiced eyes, that had learned their 
occult art so well. Vernois made no effort to relieve her 
intense confusion, bul sat watching her as a scientist might 
observe the effect of some curious experiment in the mix- 
ture of chemicals. 

“May I have the song y6u promised me this evening, 
Miss Hilary?” 

It was Gordon Warren who asked the question. He 


130 


A MORTAL COMBAT. 


had approached them unobserved by either, and now 
stood quite close to Faith’s shoulder, and measuring the 
subtle face of Julian Vernois with his cold, quiet eye. 

“Oh, yes, with much pleasure,” said Faith, as she rose, 
with an almost eager haste, and took a long breath, as a 
diver does when rising out of suffocating waves. There 
was an expression of gratitude in the bright, trustful eyes 
as she turned them from the dark, languid face of the 
creole to Warren’s grave, strong countenance. 

“Wouldn’t half an hour later suit you as well, sir?” 
asked Vernois, with cool insolence of manner, while his 
olive cheek flushed with resentment of the interruption to 
his pastime, and his fiery glance added plainly: “Don’t 
you see that / am engaging Miss Hilary’s attention 

“No,” answered Warren, emphasizing the sharp mono- 
syllable with one of his cold, direct looks that implied so 
much decision, and, as he uttered the word, he gave his 
arm to Faith and led her to the piano. 

Vernois followed the tall, spare form with wrathful eyes, 
that expressed both surprise and indignation. Such con- 
duct on the part of a man occupying the inferior social 
grade of the young lawyer, seemed little short of insult to 
the imperious mind of Mr. Julian Vernois, who drew his 
lineage from the loins of Bourbon kings. 

Another pair of eyes than Julian’s had watched the 
proceeding. 

Leda noticed that before interrupting the tete-a-tete^ 
Warren had been intently observing Faith Hilary from 


A MORTAL COMBAT. 


131 

where he stood talking with another guest at the farther 
end of the apartment. 

The moment she saw him deliberately cross to Faith's 
side, she felt assured he did so with the purpose to inter- 
rupt the fooling on which Vernois had made his reputa- 
tion, and which was too evidently having its effect on the 
clear, open face of the unsophisticated girl, whom he was 
subjecting to the ordeal of his fascinations. 

“You managed that little coup with infinite address," 
said Leda, a little later in the evening, when she found 
herself near Warren. “It was like you to rescue poor, 
simple-minded little Faith from Julian’s wiles; but you 
must bear, in mind the inevitable fate of doughty knights 
who become champions for distressed damsels." 

‘ ‘ I think there’s no fear that I shall get into any serious 
trouble on Miss Hilary's account. ’ 

“I did not mean exactly that; perhaps you will only 
be saving her from one peril to plunge her into another. " 

Leda smiled significantly as she said this, and showered 
the full splendor of her admiring eyes upon the impassible 
face of her companion. 

“Ido not understand, ” said Warren, who was utterly 
devoid of that personal vanity that makes a man fancy 
himself dangerous to the heart-peace of every woman he 
meets. 

“You know that in the legends the rescued lady in- 
variably bestows her favor upon the cavalier who wields 
his lance in her cause. " 


32 


A MOR TAL CO MBA T. 


“No fear of so romantic a denouement in this in- 
stance,” he replied, as his eyes wandered to where, Faith 
sal, gayly bandying words with two or three young gentle- 
men. “She could never think of me in any other aspect 
than friend, mentor, or brother.” 

“You should know better than to encourage such 
incredulity; similar things happen so constantly. Unless 
you are prepared to marry Mr. Croft’s ward, and carry off 
the beautiful young heiress from all the other fortune- 
hunters, I think you are unwise to interfere with the 
attentions of men who would be eligible partners for her.” 

In her keen anxiety to sting Warren’s sensitive pride to 
the point of withdrawing his interest entirely from the 
girl, whose fortune rendered her a prize for competitors 
with mercenary motives, she had aimed her stroke too 
close to the vital spot in his character. 

In a tone of bitter contempt, he said : 

“You, madam, are the last, person alive who should 
think me capable of interfering with a woman’s social 
prospects. Miss Hilary is as sacred from matrimonial 
designs on my part as if she were my own sister. ” 

Almost immediately after this he took his leave. 

Crossing the sward beyond the shrubbery, he entered 
the deeply embowered arcade of the drive that led toward 
the city, and there, standing beneath one of the huge 
oaks in a languid attitude, with a cigar between his lips, 
he perceived the elegant person of Julian Vernois. With an 
indolent gesture, and not changing his posture, Vernois said: 


A MORTAL COMBAT 


m 


** I suppose, sir, you will have no objection to explain- 
ing the very remarkable conduct of which you were guilty 
toward me this evening ?” 

Warren had stopped within an arm’s length of his in- 
terlocutor, who concluded his question by taking the 
cigar from his lips and puffing a cloud of smoke into the 
star-lit air. 

am unaware of anything specially remarkable in 
my manner where you were concerned, but you are 
welcome to put your own construction on any act of 
mine. ” 

Warren’s tone was a trifle contemptuous, as he scanned, 
the lithe, supple form before him — slender and delicate 
as an Arab’s, but fibrous and tense as if its tissues were 
of steel. 

‘‘If you are ignorant of any offense to a gentleman in 
your behavior this evening, I have only to say that your 
instincts on such points must be as obscure as your 
birth, sir.” 

The words were ineffably insolent, and the haughty 
tone of the patrician exquisite rendered them utterly un- 
bearable to the proud manhood of Gordon Warren. 

“I trust you will find nothing obscure about this, sir!” 

With a movement altogether as light and as cool as his 
tone, Warren struck Vernois a blow upon the mouth that 
^ staggered him. 

The delicate aristocrat knew that however he might 
surpass the stalwart plebeian in insolence of speech, he 


134 


A MORTAL COMBAT. 


was no match for him in sheer physical force. He seemed 
not to have counted on this turn, for his voice was utterly 
choked with rage as he said, almost in a whisper, but with 
a horrid oath : 

** I shall kill you for that !” 

“You will fry to, I know, of course. I ask your pardon 
for the blow, which, as the stronger man, I should have 
refrained from giving, only that I felt constrained to fur- 
nish you another pretext for a quarrel than the one you 
took. You understand now which of my offenses I am 
to settle with you in our ostensible quarrel." 

' ‘ How dare you presume to instruct me on points of 
propriety, sir!" 

“Only because a man who can insult a lady with false- 
ness and frivolity is not apt to be too careful how he uses 
his opportunities of injuring her by other means." 

Of course there could be but one mode of concluding 
an interview of this character between two Southern 
gentlemen. After a few more words, they separated for 
the night. 

At dawn of the following morning these two men stood 
calmly fronting each other in the gray shadows, upon a 
lonely strip of sward by the river, just one mile from the 
city. Each clasped a loaded revolver, and the cold gleam 
of the deadly weapons was not more ominous than the 
light that flashed from Julian Vernois' black orbs as they 
met the steadfast, level gaze of his antagonist. They had 
cast lots to decide which should give the signal to fire. 


THE PLOTTERS. 


^35 


Calculating probabilities by ordinary rules, there were 
fearful odds against the calm, towering form of the young 
lawyer, who was utterly unskilled in the use of weapons, 
while he was perfectly aware that the man before him 
bore an established reputation as a “dead shot,” who 
had left more than one duello with blood-stains upon his 
conscience. 

It was Gordon Warren's clear, incisive tone that clave 
the cold, crisp air with the one word : 

“Fire!” 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE PLOTTERS. 

Two pistol-shots rang simultaneously out through the 
still solitude, and a moment after Gordon Warren sank 
down upon the turf, a crimson stream oozing from his 
breast through the immaculate linen bosom of his shirt. 

“Dead, by Jovel” exclaimed Vernois, in a low, horror- 
struck tone, as he strode to where his opponent lay, pallid 
and breathless, with his 'corpse-like face upturned to the 
white dawn sky. 

With trembling hand, he opened the garments that 
covered the wound he had made, and then turned away, 
shuddering, and as pale as the senseless man by whom he 
knelt. 


THE PLOTTERS, 


^36 

In a minute more he was spurring his horse, the fleetest 
in the Lucerne stables, toward the city at lightning speed, 
and, with all possible dispatch, procured a surgeon and a 
carriage, with which he returned to the place of the ren~ 
contre, 

“Still alive, but I wouldn't give a dime for his chance 
of recovery," said the young surgeon, after his examina- 
tion of the wound. And then, with significant earnest- 
ness, he added, locking full in Vernois' eyes : “And still 
less for your chance of life if he dies. He’s wonderfully 
beloved by the lower classes here, and they’d take the law 
into their own hands to avenge his death. Take my 
advice and get away as fast as you can. " 

“Thank you; but you don’t imagine 1 shall?" 

“As you please, sir — there, carry his head a little 
higher — so. ” 

They placed the unconscious form of the wounded man 
within the carriage, where the surgeon supported it, while 
Vernois remounted the driver’s seat, and in due time the 
pale sufferer was under the doctor's roof, with the wound 
probed and dressed, and his consciousness restored. 

On one side of him stood the surgeon, on the other the 
dark, hueless face of the creole bent over his pillow, as 
Warren’s eyes unclosed from the long swoon. He looked 
from one to the other with a confused expression. After a 
little he said, feebly ; 

“Ah, I remember — you shot me." 


THE PLOTTERS. 1 3 7 

This to Vernois, into whose face he was then intently 
gazing. 

**Yes; but I swear I did not aim to hit home so close." 

Warren made no answer to this, but, turning to the sur- 
geon, said : 

‘ ‘ Whatever happens, you will bear witness that I fell in 
a fair fight, and that it was I who chose to fight without 
seconds or witnesses, and I gave the signal to fire. In the 
meantime, assign any cause save the true one for my 
illness. I think I shall get well ; if not, there will be 
time for disclosure after I am dead. " 

There was a sound strangely like a sob in Julian Ver- 
nois' throat as he turned from the bedside and walked 
away to the window. 

Warren followed him with a compassionate look. He 
seemed to put himself for the moment in Vernois’ place, 
forgetting his own disaster. 

Drawing the surgeon nearer to him, he whispered, still 
looking at Vernois : 

‘ * Send him away — he can do no good here. " 

After this the wounded man closed his eyes and relapsed 
into a stupor. 

♦ * * ♦ 4c 

“Surely you are not in earnest, Julian?" 

Mrs. Croft's haughty lips curled scornfully as she put 
the question to her handsome cousin, who reclined at her 
feet on the mound of sunny turf, where they had paused 
in their walk along the lake-shore. 


138 


THE PLOTTERS. 


\ don’t blame you for doubting it; but strange as the 
truth is, I swear to you that I was never so painfully in 
earnest in my life.” 

“Then I’m soriy for you. I brought you here to take 
the little simpleton out of my way, and not to entangle 
your affections with her, I can hardly credit my own 
senses when they assure me that_y^«, Julian Vernois, are 
mad after a bit of pink and white womankind like 
Faith.” 

“It is precisely such a creature, nymph-like and pure, 
that can turn the brain of a world-worn vivant like your 
humble servant. Now you, ma belle Leda, could not stir 
a fiber of me, charm you never so wisely. I've had a 
surfeit of the Cleopatra type.” 

“Thank you for the delicate compliment. You have a 
novel mode of ingratiating yourself into favor, when yt)u 
want my help to accomplish an almost impossible thing.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, the day is past when you and I need exchange 
flattering speeches, beautiful coz. Besides, the service will 
be mutual, after all. The little girl will remain a thorn in 
your side, if I take her not away. She's just the creature 
to fall desperately in love with your hero, Warren. As 
soon as he is on his legs again — ^which won't be long — he 
will resume his place here, and little Faith's eyes, filled 
with compassionate sympathy for the pale invalid, will 
play havoc with the heart you wish to hold in your toils.” 

“Granting the truth of all you say, Julian, what is to 
be done? Mr. Croft will never consent to your having his 


THE PLOTTERS. 


139 


ward, and, subtle as your influence over her is, you could 
never induce her to run away with you. ” 

“No; I dare not even speak to her of love, far less of 
marriage. She takes fright like a timid fawn that hears 
the rustle of leaves, if I but approach the vital question. ” 

“Then she is not in love with you?" 

“I know it; but the power I have over her at times 
amounts to infatuation. Opportunity is all that I lack to 
carry off my prize by strategy." 

“ That is exactly what I cannot furnish you. Miss Dra- 
per is an Argus that cannot be evaded, unless the girl willed 
to dispense with her eternal surveillance. In my opinion 
you have frightened her with your evil eye, and she keeps 
the governess close by as a counter-charm." 

“I’ve thought of that myself. Is there no way to win 
Croft over?” 

“ He will not even listen to the suggestion. I’ve done 
my best with him. Indeed you cannot wonder, my dear 
Julian, for the world says ugly things of you ; and, while 
Croft is no saint, he dares not brave social opinion so far 
as to consent to a match between his immaculate young 
ward and a man with your reputation." 

There’s too much truth in that view of the subject. 
But what need we care about his consent? Only help 
me to get possession of the girl, and the rest is simple 
enough. ’’ 

• “I dare not have any hand in such an intrigue.” 

<< Are you afraid of your husband’s resentment?” 


140 


THE PLOTTERS, 


“lam afraid of the consequences of meddling in Faith’s 
destiny. ” 

“Time was when nothing earthly could daunt or 
frighten you, Leda. You are a great coward about this 
girl.” 

“I have reason to be so. You know how joyfully I 
would be rid of her, but you must manage it yourself; I 
will not touch the business. ” 

As she said this with decisive emphasis, Mrs. Croft rose 
from her seat upon the trunk of a fallen tree and turned 
her steps toward the house. Vernois remained stretched 
on the grass, seemingly oblivious of her movements. 

It was now over too weeks since the encounter which 
had come nigh to costing Gordon Warren’s life. He was 
pronounced to be out of danger, but still so ill that he 
could not leave his bed. His desperate attack was reputed 
to be the result of an accident, and the extent of his dan- 
ger had been carefully concealed by the attending sur- 
geon, and his mother, who was his only nurse. Mean- 
time Julian Vernois had remained a guest at Lucerne, 
and, in his daily and continuous association with Faith 
Hilary’s exquisite womanhood, had yielded himself to the 
fresh, pure charm of her guileless nature till pleasure in 
her bright, vivacious society had grown to a passionate 
craving for the full and entire ownership of her rare, new-r* 
blown loveliness. 

It was not possible that a susceptive, impressionable girl 
could remain insensible to the fascinations of an accom- 


THE PLOTTERS. 


141 

plished and captivating man like Julian Vernois, especially 
when genuine admiration for herself gave a keener edge 
to the subtle flatteries in which he expressed his homage. 
Yet, despite the sensuous attraction that he exercised over 
her, there was an instinctive mistrust of him that was ever 
present in. Faith’s angelic soul, and that caused her to 
shrink from his amorous eyes and honeyed phrases with a 
feeling of absolute dread. 

So. long as he avoided all tender references in his talk, 
the girl was unfeignedly delighted with his attentions, 
which he knew how to invest with the thousand nameless 
graces that can be felt but not described. His dark. 
Oriental beauty of face and person must alone have had 
their effect upon the artistic sense of the imaginative 
maiden, who colored all things with the warm tones of 
her poetic fancy, and, in the unconscious admiration 
which he often saw in her candid eyes, Julian found stim- 
ulating nutriment for the new-born passion that was astir 
in his heart. 

Leda had only spoken half the truth when she said Mr. 
Croft would never consent to Julian's marriage with his 
ward ; but she purposely suppressed the fact that if it could 
be compassed without his consent or connivance, Mr. Croft 
would rejoice as much as herself to be relieved of the oner- 
ous charge of the young lady on honorable terms that 
would satisfy Faith's mother. 

In a covert way, Leda had left nothing undone to in- 
flame Faith’s fancy for the creole, and no breath of the 


142 


THE PLOTTERS. 


scandals attaching to Mr. Vernois* character had intruded 
within the seclusion of Lucerne. For the rest, a less adroit 
man would have found ample occasion to interest an ap- 
preciative woman in the same house with him, and con- 
stantly exposed to his society, as Faith was, albeit the 
clever, alert little governess was never long absent from 
their company. 

Without being in the least obtrusive, Alice Draper man- 
aged to keep within ear-shot of her young pupil whenever 
there seemed to be a chance for a tete-a-tete between Faith 
and the privileged guest of Mrs. Croft. So deeply and 
confidingly had Faith learned to love and admire the gen- 
uine, honest, and cultured woman to whom her education 
had been intrusted, and who was also her sole companion 
among the strange natures that composed the Lucerne 
household, that she seemed never to object to Miss Dra- 
per’s participation in all her conversations, walks, or drives 
with the handsome creole. On the contrary, she made a 
point of extending to Miss Draper all the invitations with 
which Vernois honored her. This, of course, was to the 
last degree obnoxious to the imperious character of Ver- 
nois, and perhaps this impediment to unrestricted associa- 
tion with the girl only served to augment his fancy for her. 
Like all vain men who have achieved great success with 
women, he detested contradiction from them. 

As he lay pondering the situation, with his dreamy eyes 
fixed on the calm, silvery waters of the lake, and his 
elegant person reclined on the shelving bank, the sound 


THE PLOTTERS. 


U3 

of voices in speech and laughter came to him. Miss 
Hilary and her governess were approaching down the lime 
walk. An enormous Irish setter dog followed at their 
skirts. It was Faith’s pet and playfellow, that Uriel had 
trained to keep the girl company in her desultory wander- 
ings about the environs of the city of her birth, and along 
the bright gulf-shore where Faith loved to roam at will. 

“How gay you are this morning 1” called Vernois to the 
laughing girl, as she drew near to his resting-place. 

“ Yes, and for a very good reason. I sent a bouquet of 
hot-house flowers, with a note, to Mr. Warren, and re- 
ceived a reply, written with his own hand, to say that he 
is greatly better, and hopes soon to join us again. ” 

“I should be willing to suffer twice as much, and as 
long as he has done, if my recovery could give you such 
pleasure. ” 

He spoke the words lightly, and smiled ; but the fire in 
his languid eyes burned with a darker glow as he watched 
the bright, changeful face that looked down on him from 
the shadow of Faith’s broad sun-hat. 

“Would you, though?” 

There was more naivete than coquetry in the question, 
as she bent for\vard to reach a wreath of jasmine from the 
branches above his head. She was ineffably graceful and 
pretty, and bewitchingly feminine in her lithe movement, 
with the wide sleeves falling from the snowy roundness of 
her uplifted arms, and her delicate hands busy among the 
dark foliage of the blossoming vines. 


144 


THE PLOTTERS. 


“ Let me cut them for you ; they will hurt your hand^ 
said Julian, who had arisen ; and, as he spoke, he took 
her fingers from the obstinate stem she was trying to twist 
from the vine, and held the little hand for a second while 
he detached the spray with his knife. 

Careless as the action seemed, and apparently intent at 
he was upon gathering the flowers, Verriois was not the 
man to miss one shade of the quick color that rose to 
Faith’s cheek, nor the light, tremulous movement of the 
slender fingers imprisoned in his clasp. 

But Faith had no dream of his consciousness, so non- 
chalant was his expression and his tone, as he said, loosing 
her hand, and winding the long wreath of golden blooms 
about her white straw hat : 

“You might pass for a Greuze shepherdess now, with 
your short, bright skirts, and the crown of blossoms round 
your head — eh. Miss Draper?” 

“I often think she should have belonged to Arcadia, 
and dwelt only with folks who were simple and true,” re- 
plied Alice Draper, sending the direct glance of her clear 
blue eyes into the half-sinister ones of her interlocutor. 

The governess was so earnest a little Puritan that her 
face always expressed all that she felt, and Julian saw that 
her answer carried its covert meaning. 

He laughed satirically, as he said : 

‘ ^ And do you imagine the Arcadians were a bit more 
guileless than latter-day folks? For my part, I think 
there’s precious little difference between the men and 


THE PLOTTERS. 


145 


women of to-day and the perfect pair that trod the daisy- 
starred shores of Abana and Pharpar. ” 

*‘In nature, perhaps not; but in practice, I fancy that 
some, at least, of their descendants combine the duplicity 
of Adam with the subtlety of the serpent. 

*‘From that remark it is fair to conclude that Eve’s 
daughters have, in some instances, improved in the mat- 
ter of ingenuous credulity. We should scarce have had 
the pretty fable of ‘ The Celestial Garden, ' had Dame Eve 
possessed your wisdom. Miss Draper. ” 

do believe that you two are trying to quarrel," cried 
Faith, opening her eyes very big, and turning their bright, 
ruddy light first on one and then the other of her compan- 
ions. '‘Come, Miss Draper,” she added, “let us continue 
our walk, and leave Mr. Vernois to vent his spite upon the 
animate and inanimate objects of nature, in the solitary 
contemplation of which we disturbed him. He may be 
more amiable when we meet him again. " 

The two ladies passed on their way, and Julian lighted a 
cigar and resumed his lazy pose on the velvet grass. 


146 


A SISTER OF CHARITY. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

A SISTER OF CHARITY. 

‘‘Only let me see him for five minutes, Mrs. Warren. 
I have asked Dr. Wise’s permission, and he says there’s no 
longer the least objection to his having brief visits from 
his friends. On the contrary, they will cheer and revive 
him.” 

“ I will let Gordon know of your kind wish to see him, 
Mrs. Croft. I am sure he will be flattered, even if he 
should not feel strong enough to receive you to-day. ” 

“No, no; you must not say a word of it, but let me 
give him a pleasant surprise. The stimulant will be good 
for him.” 

“Perhaps it may be,” said the timid old woman, as she 
stood hesitating, half dazzled, half irresolute, in view of 
the high distinction conferred upon her humble roof and 
her darling son by the presence and insistence of this 
beautiful high-born lady. 

“I know that it will — he has been so much with me, 
and we are such good friends. See, I have brought him 
some books, and will read to him if he likes.” 

Quite persuaded, the old dame led the way without 
further demur across the length of a somewhat spacious 
cottage, and, opening a door at the farther end of the 


A SISTER OF CHARITY. 


H7 

hall, looked in, and then nodded to Leda, who followed 
her into the small but airy chamber fitted up as a library. 

For the first time since his accident, Gordon Warren had 
been removed from his bedroom in a rolling chair, and 
laid upon a couch in Jfie adjoining room, which was 
brighter, and opened on the well-kept flcwer-garden of 
old-fashioned plants. 

The warm hues of his chamber-robe, and the gay cover- 
lid thrown over him, intensified the paleness and sharp- 
ened outlines of the massive face that lay upon a dark 
silken cushion. 

A flush, that seemed to pain him as it rose, flamed up 
into Warren’s cheek and brow, as he met the radiant, 
joyful face that Leda bent over him from the back of his 
couch. 

“They told me you had left your room to-day, and I 
could not longer delay coming to see you.” 

She touched his forehead with her ungloved fingers as 
she spoke, and the perfume of her breath wandered, like 
the balm of warm south winds, over his cheek. 

“You are very good, madam. Mother, won’t you give 
Mrs. Croft that chair?” 

He motioned Leda to take the chair which Mrs. Warren 
had just placed in front of him, a little way from his 
couch, and added : 

“It is worth being ill to find how we are valued by our 
friends. There have not been hours enough in the day 


148 


A SISTER OF CHARITY. 


for us to number the thoughtful acts of ours — have there, 
mother?" 

‘*No, indeed, my boy. Thank God we have learned 
that your life is precious to many a good heart, since that 
terrible night that almost robbectme of you." 

‘ ' Let us not speak of that now, dear, " he said, gently, 
seeing the garrulous old lady about to enter upon a 
minute account of how, when, and where her son met 
with the accident which had come so nigh to making her 
childless. 

His lightest word or sign was enough to render the 
devoted old mother subject to his will. 

“Whose lovely offering is that he cherishes so close 
to him?" asked Leda, pointing to a small basket of 
geranium-blooms, with a delicate note lying in the midst 
of them. 

“You ought to recognize those flowers, since they 
came from your own conservatoiy," said Warren, replying 
to her question, and passing his hand caressingly over the 
bright velvet petals of the gorgeous flowers. 

“From Miss Hilary, I presume." 

Despite her effort to speak sweetly, there was a ring of 
displeasure in her voice that made him say : 

“ I hope you don’t mind her having robbed your plants 
for me? You would not, I know, if you guessed half the 
delight they have given me. She has not missed sending 
me a bouquet one single day since my injury — dear little 
soull” 


A SISTER OF CHARITY. 149 

Whether the tenderness of his tone roused her resentful 
jealousy, or that she felt reproached by Faith’s delicate and 
constant attention for her own lack of the refined senti- 
ment that prompted the girl to send these fragrant and 
lovely messengers into the sick man’s darkened chamber, 
Leda felt her whole being flusl^ with chagrin and mortifi- 
cation. She said, softly, and casting down her eyes : 

“I have so envied her the privileged freedom that per- 
mitted her to do what I dared not.” 

Warren made no reply, but glanced uneasily round to 
see the effect of Leda's words upon his mother ; but the 
old lady had just a moment previously left the room, 
which Leda had ''seen and taken advantage of. She 
added : 

‘‘But you see, I have brought myself to you at the 
earliest possible moment. Mr. Croft escorted me to the 
gate, and is to call for me on his way back to Lucerne in 
an hour.” 

“You have some books with you?” he said, reaching 
his hand for one of the volumes that lay on her lap. 

“Yes, and will put my eyes and voice at your disposal, 
if you wish. I am a tolerable elocutionist, you know; 
and I fancied you might be too weak to read yet awhile. ” 

“Thank you very much for thinking of it; but I will 
not tax you. ” 

“Do you, then, wish to deny me so small a pleasure? 
Heaven knows I have not so many. ” 

She looked bitterly hurt as she said it, and Warren’s 


150 


A SISTER OF CHARITY. 


heart relented from its stern purpose of repressing her 
interest. It was only a simple thing enough that she pro- 
posed; and, with his mother present, and her husband’s 
\countenance of her act, there could not surely be any 
harm. Besides, the days were long and tedious, and he 
was weary of the dull 9onfinement; and this lovely 
woman, with her rich, melodious voice, and wondrous 
soft charm, could shed a harmless luster through at least 
one hour of the aimless invalid days, till he could move 
about again. 

Perhaps, too, suffering had weakened his faculties so 
much as to render him incapable of a sustained effort. 
He closed his eyes languidly, and said : 

“As you please, madam. I am forbidden to talk 
much, but I believe there is no injunction against my 
listening. ” 

“I do not mean to tax your mental digestion with any 
very strong food, you see, ” said Leda, opening the pages 
of a novelette, and beginning to read aloud. 

The spicy odors and fragrance of lime blossoms from 
the sunny garden were blown through the open window 
into the pretty little room ; and the drowsy hum of labor- 
ing bees mingled with the low and sweetly modulated 
tones of the beautiful reader. There was a soft, dream- 
like charm in it all to the enfeebled senses of the invalid. 
Even the living and splendid beauty of the woman before 
him, on whose ravishingly suffused face his eyes rested, 
seemed a part of some bright phantasmagoria, seen 


A SISTER OF CHARITY. 151 

through the mist and confusion of dreams, surrounded 
by the vague shadows of the fictitious characters that 
emerged from the romance she was reading, and moved 
about that central figure. 

Soothed by these half-slumbrous fancies, the sick brain 
lapsed away into unconscious repose; and Leda knew, 
by the deep, regular breathings, that Warren slept pro- 
foundly. 

She closed the book, and let her gaze dwell without fear 
upon the grand white face, that lay like an antique bas- 
relief before her. The ravages of pain and fever had not 
beautified the inharmonious physiognomy, but had accent- 
uated the powerful lines of character which rendered 
Gordon Warren’s countenance remarkable for force and 
dignity. 

The resolute compression of the lips, which was habit- 
ual to him, and which gave a look of sternness to his 
lower face, save when he smiled or laughed, was not no- 
ticeable now in the relaxation of slumber. On the con- 
trary, the softened curves of the fever-flushed mouth 
seemed almost sensuous by contrast with the severely cut 
and pallid features to which it belonged. 

Looking on him thus, it was easy to divine the unerr- 
ing insignia of character — which, in truth, the lineaments 
of the face are ; and Leda made no great mistake in be- 
lieving that the passional nature of this man was in no 
wise inferior in strength to his grandly developed intel- 
lectual organism. 


152 


A SISTER OF CHARITY. 


Her vain heart waxed glad within her as she thought on 
the possibilities that lay before her in the frequent recur- 
rence of mornings like the present. What should hinder 
the spell of her beauty with hours like this at her dis- 
posal? The musical droning of the golden bees among 
the lime boughs, the chirp of happy birds in the outer air, 
only enhanced the deep hush within the chamber; and 
Leda could hear the loud throbs of her eager heart as it 
pulsed in unison to her passionate hopes. She would go 
away now, that when he waked he should miss and want 
the soft glories of her loveliness. 

With noiseless motion she rose, and, bending over the 
sleeper, touched his dark locks with her lips that were 
quivering like wind-blown roses. He stirred nervously, as 
if his frame had felt the light contact, but did not waken 
till long after. It was the aged, white-haired Dame War- 
ren that he saw seated in the arm-chair before him, 
instead of Leda's royal presence. And, man-like, he 
sighed. 


LOST. 


153 


CHAPTER XV. 

LOST ! 

The brightest and balmiest of spring-tides blesses the 
Land of Flowers, and a gay party of excursionists have 
chartered a small schooner for a May-day celebration on 
the lovely banks of the St. John's, about seven miles 
below the city. The ladies from Lucerne, under the 
escort of Mr. Croft and Julian Vernois, are among the 
patrons of the rural fete. 

The spot selected for the occasion is the picturesque 
site of an old fort, celebrated in history as the place of 
refuge for the early settlers of Florida from the predatory 
attacks of the Indian tribes then inhabiting the fairest 
portions of the peninsula. 

The ruins of its rocky foundations still surmount the 
eminence overlooking the river, and vines and creepers, 
rank as jungle plants, cover the crumbling mass of 
masonry. 

For miles inland a dense forest of live oaks and mag- 
nolias shelters herds of deer and smaller game. But on 
this day the shy denizens of the green wood have retreated 
to their hiding-places before the invading throng of pleas- 
ure-seekers; and the patch& of soft, rich turf, canopied 
over with festoons of vines, and inlaid with fallen petals 


154 


LOST, 


of the creamy magnolia flowers and purple wood-violets, 
are abandoned to groups or couples of romantic young 
folks, whose talk and laughter chime in sweetly with the 
brazen music that sounds from the band playing on the 
deck of the schooner moored to the cliff. 

The soft, purple haze of a cloudless afternoon is.gather- 
ing over the scene, and the smooth surface of the river 
glistens as an opaline lake under the tender blue or 
the sky. 

‘‘Will you have the kindness to step back to the land- 
ing and ask for my shawl that I left in the state-room, 
Miss Draper.?" said Leda to the governess, who, with 
Faith, Vernois, and herself, was about to set out on 
a walk along the shore. 

Miss Draper, of course, assented, and, watching her till 
she was out of sight, Leda said to Vernois, on whose arm 
Faith was leaning : 

“Walk on slowly— Miss Draper and I will soon over- 
take you ; it is so tedious to stand and wait. " 

Julian's face lit with grateful pleasure as he returned the 
significant glance that Leda had thrown from the corner 
of her eye. He was narrating something to the girl at the 
time, and, without making any point of it, moved on with 
her along the bank in an opposite direction to the one 
they had set out to follow. 

Leda seated herself on the grass to await Miss Draper's 
return. Long ere the little governess reached the spot 


LOST. 


155 


Vernois and his companion were lost to sight among the 
thick foliage and the shrubbery of the wood. 

“Why did they not wait for my return?" asked Miss 
Draper, with intense annoyance. 

“Oh, we shall catch them in a moment; they can 
scarcely be out of hearing. " 

Leda led the way up the river-shore toward the cove 
they had proposed to visit, and which was one of the fea- 
tures of interest in this beautiful locality. Of course they 
reached the destined spot without ever catching sight or 
sound of the creole and his charge, who were by that time 
a mile distant below their starting point at the fort. 

Alice Draper looked anxiously among the different 
groups collected along the sloping bank of the clear inlet 
for the graceful form of her pupil ; but neither Faith nor 
the creole were to be seen. 

“Where can they be?" she said, anxiously, touching 
Leda's arm as she spoke. 

“Somewhere around, I dare say. They are neither of 
imbecile, and can certainly find their way without our 
assistance, I would think. ” 

By no means satisfied with this view of the case, Miss 
Draper questioned some persons who were near her con- 
cerning the missing ones, 

“They cannot have arrived yet. We have been here 
over an hour, and must have seen them had they come 
within that period of time," was the reply she obtained 
from the lady that she had accosted ; and who added, see- 


156 


LOST, 


ing Miss Draper’s look of distress: *‘But you need not 
worry about them. They will not go out of hearing of 
the music on the boat, and that will guide them back 
even if they lose the way a little. There are so many 
queer, intricate windings of paths through these woods to 
this place that they may have become confused, and taken 
one leading back to the fort. ” 

Forcing herself to be satisfied with this suggestion for 
the present, Miss Draper waited till Leda proposed to 
return to the boat. 

It was now after sunset, and the deeply shaded woods 
grew damp and chill with the rising mists from the river. 

On arriving at the vessel, they found that a large pro- 
portion of the party had preceded them, and were already 
seated on the deck, from which the awning had been 
removed. 

A May moon swung its silver disk just above the 
plumy pines of the forest, and shed its pale splendor 
over the glassy tides that lovingly lapped the shadowy 
banks. 

Stars, calm and large, burned through the roseate ether, 
and lent their weird, sad charm to the utter stillness and 
wildness of the scenery. 

One by one the straggling parties returned to the land- 
ing and boarded the vessel, till each passenger had an- 
swered his or her name as the boatswain called the roll 
before steaming up the river. Vernois and Miss Hilary 
alone were still absent from the company. 


LOST. 


157 


Mr. Groft approached his wife, and held a whispered 
conversation of a few moments with her. 

Leda stated that Vernois and Faith had walked on to- 
ward the cove before her, and that not finding them there 
on her arrival with Miss Draper, she naturally concluded 
they had returned by a circuitous route to the landing. 

Mr. Croft turned very pale as Leda concluded her 
account. He said, in a muttering tone : 

"‘Good God ! suppose any harm befalls the girl?’' 

“Well, it is not our fault,” said Leda, shrugging her 
handsome shoulders, and looking indifferent. 

“Do you suppose she will exonerate us if evil befalls 
the girl?” 

Leda made no answer to this, but looked startled, and 
remained very thoughtful where she leaned over the rail- 
ing in the bow of the boat. 

Leaving her side, Mr. Croft called for volunteers among 
the gentlemen to go with him in search of the missing 
pair. 

“Vernois is no woodsman, and Faith still less of one. 
No doubt they have got bewildered among the blind 
paths through the forest,” explained Mr. Croft to the 
company. 

In a few moments a dozen men, provided with lanterns 
and torches, were on their way toward the wood, that was 
now wrapped in darkness, for only here and there the 
moonbeams could pierce through the dense roof of over- 


158 


LOST, 


lapping branches, laden with the tropical foliage and 
interwoven with vines and moss. 

It was growing late into the night when the last of the 
scouts returned, dejected and weary, bringing no trace of 
lost ones. 

‘ ‘ There was no use in waiting longer, ” the captain of 
the schooner said ; and the passengers, tired with the day's 
fatigues, insisted on proceeding to the city. 

Mr. Croft silently took his place by the side of his wife, 
who spoke not a syllable, but met the ominous fear that 
darkened her husband’s eyes with a look of stony calm 
that half maddened him. 

Alice Draper sat apart, straining her anxious gaze into 
the blackness of the gloomy woods along the shore, as if 
still seeking to catch the gleam of Faith Hilary’s snow- 
white garments. 

At the door of Lucerne Villa the returning trio were 
met by the ghost-like form of the housekeeper, Mrs. 
Foster. 


A DUMB SCOUT. 


159 


CHAPTER XVI. 

A DUMB SCOUT. 

It was midnight when the excursionists reached the 
city, where they found many persons, friends and relatives, 
collected on the wharves, in anxious speculation as to the 
cause of their unwonted delay. 

The news of the day’s disaster was rapidly circulated 
through the community, and, at an early hour of the 
following morning, exploring parties had set out to con- 
tinue the search after Julian Vernois and the unhappy 
young girl, whose beauty and innocence had aTeady 
endeared her to many hearts. 

There were doubtful looks and dark forebodings of 
evil exchanged between some of the elder and wiser 
folks, to whom the reckless character and unscrupulous 
career of Julian Vernois were no secrets. 

^ But Faith’s enchanting candor and purity seemed, in 
the minds of all alike, to defy the idea that , she could 
knowingly or willingly have surrendered herself to the 
machinations of a man like Vernois. Therefore the 
universal fear pointed to a fatal catastrophe as the only 
probable conclusion. 

Ab®ut noon the rumors of what had happened, and 


l6o A DUMB SCOUT, 

what was feared, reached Mrs. Warren’s cottage on the 
outskirts of the city. 

A servant who had been to market brought the story, 
duly embellished ; and, in breathless excitement, the good 
dame carried it to her son, who was now so far con- 
valescent as to sit or walk upon the sunny piazza, or 
among the flower-beds of the prim garden. 

Dame Warren found him seated, with his book and 
cigar, under the drooping boughs of a large and venerable 
cedar tree at the end of the garden, where a low W'icket 
fence divided it from the orchard, now a mass of honey- 
sweet apple blossoms, and all a-swarm with butterflies 
and bees. 

Gordon was still very delicate ; and the hollowness of 
his white cheeks, the dark circles round his eyes, told 
their own story of how nature and death had fought over 
the stalwart, but now wasted frame of the young man. 

With many a needless word and irrelevant exclama- 
tion, the good woman repeated the tragic story of Faith 
Hilary’s mysterious disappearance with the dark, hand- 
some stranger who was the guest at Lucerne. Mrs. Warren 
was not ignorant of her son’s deep interest in the fair 
young ward of his partner. Indeed, she had never heard 
him speak so much nor so tenderly of any one ; and 
Faith’s continuous attentions to him during his desperate 
illness had won for her the old mother’s most grateful 
regard. 

N 

Gordon Warren heard her through with what patience 


A DUMB SCOUT. l6i 

he could command, though a keener perception than 
Dame Warren’s might easily have seen how his tried nerve 
was aching for the conclusion of the narrative. 

“And they came back without finding the child!” 
cried Warren, huskily, as he rose to his feet, a . baleful 
gleam flashing out from the empurpled sockets of his 
great, star-like eyes, and all his face quivering with an 
emotion his mother never dreamed of fathoming. The 
righteous rage of some dauntless but devout crusader 
blazed over his countenance ; and, though he ground his 
teeth hard together, a sound strangely like a curse broke 
from his livid lips. 

He strode past the wonder-struck old woman. The 
strength of his most robust health seemed suddenly to 
have leaped into his swelling veins, and fiery resolve to 
electrify his elastic form, as he stepped onward in the 
direction of the stables in the rear of the house. 

The old lady knew him too well to attempt any inter- 
ference with his humors; but her heart misgave her lest 
she had committed a serious indiscretion in her hasty dis- 
closure of the event which so moved her son. 

“He will do something now to bring on a relapse! 
The doctor said he must be so careful and quiet! Oh! 
why didn't I hold my tongue about the matter?” 

A few moments after, she heard the clatter of hoofs, 
and saw her son mounted on his black Arabian gelding — 
the one extravagance of his life— and riding at full speed 
jdown the street. 


A DUMB SCOUT, 


l6l 

Leda Croft was alone in the library at Lucerne, when 
she heard a step, that had often enough made her heart 
beat faster, cross the paved veranda and enter the vesti- 
bule of the hall. She rose quickly, and went forward to 
meet it. 

‘‘You I” she exclaimed, with glad surprise, holding 
out both of her hands to Warren, who now stood at the 
threshold of the library. 

He took no notice of her welcoming gesture or smiles, 
but said, eagerly ; 

“Tell me all that you know about that miserable 
business of yesterday, and be as brief and circumstantial 
as you can. ” 

Leda told her tale with cool, deliberate distinctness; 
but, when she had finished, Warren turned from her with 
an expression of the deepest disgust in his falcon eyes. 

He knew that she had lied to him about the manner 
of her getting separated from Faith, and he knew, too, 
how worse than useless it would be to try to wring the 
truth out of a woman who was perpetrating a cold-blooded 
falsehood for her own purposes. 

What those purposes were he did not guess nor ques- 
tion ; but, for the first time in his life, he haied Leda. 

All pity, all compassion, seemed to wither away under 
the steady white flame that lit Leda’s eyes. 

He loathed her that she could stand there with a lie on 
her lips, and the soft peach bloom on her calm cheek, 
while the fate of that delicate child, that snow-white dove 


A DUMB SCOUT. 163 

of maidenhood, hung in mortal peril, if not already con- 
signed to ruin or death. 

** Where is your husband and her guardian?" he 
demanded, sternly, while his glance flashed over her, 
scathing as a lightning blast. 

**Gone out with the townsmen in search of the bsL** 

There was a scarcely perceptible intonation of scorn in 
her tone as she pronounced the two last words. 

Warren's ear caught it, and it seemed to kindle his 
whole being with wrath. 

He fixed her with a look, as he said, in a low, sup- 
pressed way ; 

Madam, not all the angels in heaven, nor devils in 
hell, could make me believe that Faith Hilary could for 
one instant be untrue to the pure, chaste laws of her 
innocent being, or consent to one act that would leave 
suspicion on her conduct But I know as well as you, 
that Julian Vernois is quite capable of the blackest villainy 
that man or fiend can practice. " 

With this he turned abruptly from Leda’s presence, and 
passed out of the house. 

The prolonged and mournful howl of a dog arrested 
his attention as he crossed the garden toward the side- 
gate, where he had left his horse. 

He recognized the deep, sonorous baying of Faith's 
Irish setter, Mark, whose sagacity was almost human. 

He stopped a moment ; a happy idea occurred to him ; 
he returned back and entered the house. 


1 64 


.A DUMB SCOUT. 


Leda was standing just where he had left her. She 
seemed stunned or spell-bound, so absent was her ex- 
pression, as he said : , 

“Is not the dog, Mark, fastened up somewhere?" 

“Yes; they locked him up yesterday to prevent his 
following Faith, and no one has thought to open his 
kennel this morning, I suppose." 

‘ ‘ Where is his kennel ?" 

• * ‘ Out there toward the stables. " 

Warren took his way to the spot where the faithful dog 
was imprisoned, and loudly grieving for the fair little 
hands that were accustomed to bring his breakfest and 
release him from his sleeping apartment. 

Drawing the bolts, the young man called the dog to 
him> and bidding Mark follow, which he gladly did, 
being quite used to the presence and kindly attention of 
Faith’s friend, Warren mounted his horse and rode away, 
with the beautiful setter at the heels of his fleet Arabian. 

It was more expeditious for him to ride across the 
country to the scene of the previous day's fete^ than to 
encounter the delay of getting a boat to take him by the 
water, and, drawing the rein upon his willing steed, he 
traversed the intervening miles within a wonderful brief 
space of time. 

Arrived at the spot near the old fort which Leda had 
indicated as the one from which Faith had set forth with 
Vernois, Warren watched the motions of the dog wi^h 
intense anxiety. 


A DUMB SCOUT. 


165 


Mark had given a sharp, quick bark of satisfaction the 
moment he touched the green embankment where his 
mistress had stood just before departing on that fateful 
walk with the creole, and, after sniffing about nervously, 
set off at a blithe pace in an opposite direction to that 
which led to the cove. 

A grim look came over Warren's face as he noticed 
this, to him, significant fact. 

He tried to whistle and call the dog back, but it was 
useless. Mark's unerring sense had caught the trail of 
those dainty steps he had followed since his puppyhood, 
and that he loved as only dogs can love. 

Guiding his horse with difficulty through the dense 
thicket, along a narrow pathway close to the edge of the 
channel, Warren kept the dog in sight, till at length IVIark 
ran down a gentle declivity, hollowed out in the bank and 
sloping to the water. 

Here he stopped and gave vent to his perplexity in low, 
troubled whines. 

Dismounting, Warren followed the dog down the em- 
bankment, and, looking closely about him, noticed a 
stout ash stake driven deep into the mud at the verge of 
the water. 

Thoroughly versed in the habits and pursuits of the 
country people, he at once concluded that the stake had 
been placed there for the purpose of securing the chain of 
one of the fishing boats, which might be seen fastened all 
glong the shore. 


i66 


A DUMB SCOUT, 


But no signs of boat or boatman were to be seen, and 
only the piteous and incessant whines of the dog con- 
nected Faith Hilar)''s disappearance with this lonely, wild 
spot. 

But these were ‘^confirmation strong as proofs of Holy 
Writ” to the conviction in Warren's mind that the girl had 
been decoyed away from her friends by some selfish or 
vicious caprice of the unscrupulous creole — whether for 
mere idle pastime or with a darker purpose, Warren had 
not allowed himself to decide. 

The thought that now suggested itself to him caused 
the flush that exercise had brought to his cheek to fade 
away, and leave his face tortured as with a deadly pain. 

What if, in a mad freak, the creole had persuaded Faith 
to trust herself to his care in one of the frail skiffs used 
by the hardy black fishermen, and, as most likely, some 
fatal accident had befallen them in the eddying currents 
of the stream, where the tide-water met the more placid 
flow of the river? 

Dreadful as this thought was, Warren seemed to breathe 
more freely after it than when his fancy had brooded on 
the more revolting possibilities born of his mistrust of the 
creole's honor, which he knew to be so darkly tainted 
with that kind of infamy of which society takes so little 
account where the offender is a man / 

After much persuasion, Warren induced the dog to 
return with him to the steamboat landing behind them. 
Here he obtained a small scull and a negro oarsman, and. 


A DUMB SCOUT, 


167 


following the left bank of the river seaward, he proceeded 
along the shore for a few miles beyond the place to which 
Mark had tracked the girl's footsteps. 

Beds of marsh began to show in the widening stream 
as they neared the outlet, and, in passing one of these, 
Warren’s eye fastened on a dark object lying among the 
rushes. 

Causing the oarsman to pull the boat as near to it as 
possible, he discovered that it was a capsized boat, similar 
to the rude skiflf that bore him. 

‘*Do you know who owns the boat that is generally 
fastened to that little landing that we passed first on our 
way?” he asked of the negro. 

‘*Ya-as, boss. One ole man w’at b'longs to Colonel 
Hunter hab fishin’-boat in dat place. ’Tain’t dar now, 
fur I been look fur ’em w’en we pass de landin’.” 

‘‘Would you know the boat by any peculiar mark or 
character in its shape ?” 

“Lord, ya-as, boss. Uncle Kelter (Cato) too partic’lar 
wid him boat not fur fix ’em so dar’ll be no mistake ef 
any nigger try fur steal ’em. He hab one long slim fish 
w’at his little massa carb wid his pocket-knife on de inside 
ob de top plank.” 

“Here’s a dollar for you if you swim in to where that 
boat is caught in the marsh and turn it over. I’m curious 
to see if it answers your description of Uncle Kelter’s 
boat.” 

Dazzled by the prospect of the bright reward, Samboes 


A DUMB SCOUT. 


1 68 

rolling eyes turned reluctantly from the silver dollar that 
lay in Warren's palm, and, plunging into the stream, he 
soon grasped the keel of the little boat, which he over- 
turned with ease. 

To pull it along to the side of the scull was a simple 
enough task for the sinewy arm of the young plowman, 
and Warren's heart seemed to die within him as he caught 
sight of the carved fish on the inner side of the boat. 

He no longer doubted the fate of poor little Faith 
Hilary at the mercy of the strong counter-tides circling 
around her, with only the unpracticed arm of a society 
exquisite like Julian Vernois between her and the cruel 
death. 

Involuntarily his eyes turned from the wrecked boat to 
the deep, insatiate waves, as if seeking to pierce their cold 
mystery, and find the fair corpse beneath. 

Had he guessed but half of the bitter truth, his soul 
would have rejoiced unspeakably to have seen the sweet 
young face deep buried in those dark waters rather than 
encounter the perils of her real fate. 


AN ECLAIRCISSEMENT. 


169 


CHAPTER XVII. 

AN ECLAIRCISSEMENT. 

Long after Gordon Warren’s departure Leda remained 
in strange bewilderment of thought and feeling. Her 
emotions resembled those of some cunning artisan, who 
beholds a rare and curious fabric that he has constructed 
with infinite toil and pains suddenly crumble to the foun- 
dation stone in irremediable ruins. 

Her thoughts traveled despairingly over the incidents of 
the past weeks, during which she had repeated almost daily 
her visits to Mrs. Warren’s cottage. The glamour of the 
old days seemed to have gathered about the long, bright 
mornings that on one pretext and another she managed to 
spend in the little library, most frequently in company 
with both mother and son; but occasionally the good 
dame would become so engrossed in household avocations 
as to leave Gordon the unaided task of entertaining their 
beautiful guest. By turns they read to each other pas- 
sages from favorite books, and not unfrequently bent to- 
gether over the same page, forgetting quite the sad old 
tale of Rimini. 

Only two days before that of the memorable picnic at 
the fort, Leda had fancied she fell a returning sense of the 


i70 


AN ECLAIRIISSEMENT, 


old power when she held this strong, earnest soul fast 
bound in the chains of passion. 

It happened in this wise : 

Warren and herself were examining together some flow- 
ers under a microscope, in pursuance of a curious theory 
upon which they had chanced while reading a magazine 
article on a botonical subject 

Warren had adjusted the glass over the flower, and 
called Leda to observe the experiment He sat at a table 
before the window, and she came and stood beside his 
chair, bending slightly over his shoulder, while she lis- 
tened to and watched his demonstrations with the instru- 
ment 

Whether from the bending attitude of her head, or some 
other cause, cannot be ascertained, but the fact was that 
the comb fell from the heavy coil of her hair, and the 
whole bright mass of fragrant, rippling locks tumbled in a 
silken shower about the throat and shoulder of the busy 
scientist 

He stopped abruptly, and, as Leda gathered back the 
flowing lengths, she saw that Warren’s hueless cheek had 
caught the warm, ruddy tints from the serpentine curls 
that had swept it. He seemed to forget what he had been 
saying, and, hurriedly rising, returned to his former place 
across the room, where he began a conversation in a new 
vein, but not without betraying a nervous consciousness 
which Leda construed into a subtle homage to herself. 
She did not, for she could not, guess how much the man 


AN ECLAIRCISSEMENT, 


171 

despised himself for such moments of weak emotional 
sentiment, with which his higher nature had no sympathy. 
To her own shallow soul there seemed nothing deeper nor 
wider than existed in the domain of sensuous and emo- 
tional life, and she could not for a moment compre- 
hend how the mortal and the immortal part of a man 
might be at direct variance — how the flesh and the spirit 
might cast lots over the prize of a true man's honor. 

That she still had power to make the delicate sensations 
of this noble being vibrate to her touch, gave her the most 
intense happiness, and filled her vain heart with hopes of a 
perfect triumph. 

Remembering all this, and thinking on him as he had 
just left her, with a fierce, indignant scorn in his eye, and 
withering contempt upon his proud lip, she abandoned 
herself to the benumbing despair that has been described. 

But under all this lay a consuming fear of the direct and 
personal disaster that was like to grow out of the present 
situation of affairs. As much as Croft she looked for and 
dreaded the result of Rachel’s wrath on account of the 
misadventure of the previous day ; and although to some 
extent she knew herself to be guilty of complicity in 
Faith’s disappearance, inasmuch as she had connived at 
Vernois’ taking the girl away from her protection, she had 
never counted on any immediate consequences attending 
this indiscretion on her part. It would have been the 
most consummate folly to have tempted her fate by a de- 
liberate act like lending herself to Vernois' villainous de- 


172 


AST ECLAIRCISSEMENT, 


signs, further than to afford him, as she thought, an hour 
of uninterrupted conversation with her young charge. 

Well as she concealed it, her horror was no less than 
that of Faith's guardian when the extent of the misfortune 
began to appear. 

Not until they reached Lucerne, on the previous night, 
did Leda fully realize the imminent peril that manaced 
her. 

Absorbed in gloomy contemplations of the dark possi- 
bilities impending, Mrs. Croft took little heed of the pass- 
ing hours, until the sound of her husband’s voice roused 
her from her reverie. 

*‘Well, what news?” she asked, as Croft entered the 
library, looking haggard as some fiend-haunted criminal. 

He closed the door securely before replying, and then, 
flinging himself wearily upon a couch near by Leda’s chair, 
he said, in a smothered tone : 

“Not a trace of them has been discovered, though 
every portion of the forest and the plantations for miles 
around have been faithfully and intelligently searched for 
a clew. It is the most baffling mystery that has ever 
crossed my experience. ” 

“Which is saying a good deal,” said Leda, with cutting 
sarcasm, “since mysteries seem to have been the order of 
your life. ” 

Croft took no heed of her taunt, nor of the cold, malig- 
nant glance that accompanied it. He went on, speaking 
in a troubled way ; 


AN" ECLAIRCISSEMENT. 


173 


‘*The thing to be considered now is how to meet the 
sure and swift resentment of Faith's mother. She cannot 
by any human possibility be kept long in ignorance of 
what has happened ; for, you know as well as I, that both 
Mrs. Foster and Miss Draper are her minions and spies, 
and were forced upon us for no other purpose than to re- 
port, not only facts, but circumstances. Unhappily, Miss 
Draper’s testimony cannot fail to cast suspicion on you as 
implicated in this miserable business. And we both saw 
with what spirit the housekeeper received the news last 
night, modified, as it was, by my presenting the extreme 
probability that we should find the wanderers this morn- 
ing, safely housed at one of the neighboring planta- 
tions.” 

“ Have you seen Mrs. Foster since your return ?” 

Yes; and told her that several of our friends had not 
yet returned, but that I had only been strengthened in my 
conviction that they would find the girl in safety.” 

What does she say about it?” 

** Nothing. I did not actually see her, for I spoke to 
her on the outside of a closed door. She gave me no 
reply to my remarks. I cannot exactly understand her 
strange manner last night. One can seldom catch a 
glimpse of her countenance, but it seemed to me that 
she showed an incomprehensible degree of terror during 
my narration of the alfair.” 

**Do you suppose they have dispatched any account of 
it to the mother yet ?” 


174 


AN ECLAIRCISSEMENT. 


imagine not; they scarcely would until some definite 
information is received/* 

‘‘Don’t you think you had better set your inventive 
faculties at the task of devising measures to protect your- 
self against that woman’s vengeance? She will be mer- 
ciless enough if the girl has come to harm.” 

Ere Croft could answer, they heard heavy, rapid steps 
approaching the house, and, as Croft opened the door, 
Gordon Warren, attended by the dog Mark, entered the 
hall, and came directly into the library. 

He seemed ready to drop with fatigue and faintness, as 
he sank down upon the nearest chair. The cold sweat 
stood thick upon his brow, round which the dark curls lay 
matted and damp. His voice sounded hollow and un- 
natural, as he said : 

“I think there is no longer the shadow of a doubt 
about their fate. By the aid of the dog, I traced the poor 
child's steps to a small, lonely landing used by a fisher- 
man to moor his canoe. Finding the boat gone, I took 
one from the steamboat landing, and followed down the 
stream, vaguely trusting to find some clew. Alas 1 it was 
only too readily discovered in the wrecked boat, quite too 
near the outlet for any but an expert swimmer of great 
physical strength to have saved a person from drowning. 
I had the boat identified as the one belonging to that par- 
ticular landing.” 

He paused a moment; his voice had been growing 
fainter and his face more ghastly pale with each sen- 


THE NOTE OF DOOM. 


175 


tence. He turned his tortured gaze full on Leda, and 
added : 

*^And, madam, that fatal embarkation took place just 
one mile below the fort, while you took Miss Draper to 
find her charge at the cove above it. 

This last announcement was made with difficult gasps 
for breath, and as if he was driven to utter it by some in- 
ternal agony too sharp to be resisted. 

At the last word, his head fell back against the chair, 
and it was plain that his consciousness was suspended. 

The terrible strain upon his brain and body, in the en- 
feebled state of his health, had been too much for him ; 
and, now that a climax of certainty had been reached, 
his overtaxed nervous fiber gave way. He lay like one 
dead. 

With an impulse of wild abandonment, Leda sprang 
to his side, uttering a passionate cry, and clasped the in- 
sensible head to her heart 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE NOTE or DOOM. 

Either she had forgotten or recklessly ignored the pres- 
ence of the man \^ho occupied, to all appearances, the 
position of her husband. 

Breathless with amazement and indignation, Croft be- 


76 


THE NOTE OF DOOM. 


held the revelation of what boje the aspect of falseness in 
his wife, and treachery in his friend and associate. 

Divided as his life had been from Leda’s since that day 
when Rachel cast her ghost-like shadow between them, 
and keen and cruel as had been Leda's contempt for and 
avoidance of him, he had conceived so deep and fierce a 
passion for her beauty, that although he felt himself hope- 
lessly cut off from the possession of it, he nevertheless 
suffered the furious, rending rage of a wild animal who 
finds some bold invader near his lair. 

It flashed upon him now that he had been a blind fool 
not to have long ago divined the meaning of Leda’s 
pointed interest in his young partner, whom he accused 
her of bringing to Lucerne in order to marry him to 
Faith Hillary. 

His mind was too much influenced by jealous madness 
to reflect on Warren’s consistent dignity toward the woman 
who now held his face to her heart, and rained her kisses 
on his unconscious brow. For one moment Croft was 
rendered powerless to move or speak by the violence of 
his emotions; but in the next, with his tusk-like teeth 
gnashing, and his tjiick lips foaming like a raging boar’s, 
he leaped forward, and, seizing Leda with a grip of steel, 
wrenched her aWay from the breathless white form she 
clung to, while he spat from his working mouth a. horrid 
oath. . , 

*‘How dare youl” he muttered, as he flung her upon 
couch, still grasping, her shoulder, and glaring at her 


THE NOTE OF DOOM, 


177 


with flame-like eyes that seemed starting from their hol- 
low recesses under his bristling brows. **You I cannot 
kill, but his life shall pay the forfeit of your mutual 
crime I” 

“'Mutual,' indeed I Hal hal hal What a pitiful 
fool you are to imagine that if it were 'mutual' I should 
have been here now, enduring the sickening disgust of 
your presence — the loathsome torment of my position in 
this house — the gnawing anxiety and suspense which my 
so-called marriage to you entails. No, sir 1 Vou owe the 
pleasure of my society entirely to Gordon Warren's per- 
sistent rejection of the love I feel for, and have too plainly 
offered him. Let me hope that you are dufy sensible of 
that obligation." 

She looked the incarnation of a mocking devil as she 
uttered the scoff — her beautiful lips wreathed with a smile 
of infamous glee in the thrust she was giving, and her 
eyes emitting scintillations of wicked defiance. 

“All the same, I shall assume that he is guilty, since 
through him alone I can punish you.” 

“Another poisoning tragedy, I presume 1 It is the only 
form of killing, unless a stab in the dark, of which your 
courage is capable! But unless something is done for 
him now, I think you will be saved the trouble of nerving 
yourself up to the very honorable vendetta that you con- 
template. ” 

Croft had previously relaxed his hold of her, and, as 
phc made the last remark, Leda passed swiftly to the bell- 


178 


THE NOTE OF DOOM. 


rope, and pulled it with energy, almost before he detected 
her intent. 

A servant appeared on the instant 

‘'Send Miss Draper here, and a messenger for Doctor 
Wise.” 

She gave the order with imperious and assured com- 
mand. 

In the tumult of his emotions, Croft seemed unequal 
to any interference with her directions. At no time was 
he a man of great aptitude under emergencies; he re- 
quired reflection and time for deliberate action in all im- 
portant affairs. At present he was distracted by conflict- 
ing demands upon his capacity for dealing with extraor- 
dinary difiiculties. It was necessary that he should gather 
his faculties to a focus against the exigencies of his situa- 
tion. He stood passive under Leda's dictation. 

Miss Draper and a servant entered, and the fainting 
man was laid upon the couch, while the two women 
busied themselves with reviving him from the swoon. 

When Doctor Wise arrived Warren was lying in a half- 
stupor, with increasing fever throbbing through his veins, 
and his wound bleeding from the abrasion caused by his 
violent exercise. 

“He must be put to bed instantly, and kept utterly 
quiet,” said the surgeon, after a careful examination of the 
ugly, dangerous wound on his breast. 

“Could he be taken home in a carriage, or on a 
litter?” asked Croft 


THE NOTE OF DOOM. 


179 


“Yes, of coursej; but not without serious aggravation 
to his present sufferings. I suppose there can be no ob- 
jection to his remaining here for a few days, until he has 
somewhat recovered from to-day's work ?" 

“Certainly not," replied Leda, with a tone of determi- 
nation that Croft thought best not to contradict just at 
present 

The patient seemed oblivious to everything that was 
done or said ; indeed, he was already slightly delirious, as 
it was usual for him to be under the effects of fever, and 
he remained perfectly quiescent while he was removed to 
a bed-chamber and made comfortable. 

Doctor Wise staid on for several hours to watch the 
symptoms of his patient, whose condition he regarded as 
most critical. 

Nothing in medical science or surgical skill could have 
insured the recovery which had been so nearly established, 
had Warren been possessed of a less tenacious and resilient 
vitality, for the wound was of that desperate character un- 
der which a man of infirm constitution or flaccid tempera- 
ment must certainly have perished. As it was, there had 
been times during his previous illness when the surgeon 
secretly despaired of his life. He had cautioned both 
Warren and his mother very earnestly against the danger 
of premature exertion or exposure while the ghastly wound 
was in process of healing; and, as he now watched 
the rapidly increasing fever, he felt that only a miraculous 
reserve of physical endurance could take that pain-wasted 


i8o THE NOTE OF DOOM. 

frame through another siege of suffering and the exhaust- 
ing waste from the reopened wound. 

Of course Mrs. Warren was at once summoned to the 
bedside of her son, where Alice Draper divided with her 
the duties of nurse. 

It was a sad pleasure for the kindly little governess to 
thus show her appreciation for the unvarying deference 
and gentle consideration which Warren had manifested to- 
ward her, in sharp contrast with the cold slights, and 
marked indifference that bordered on contempt, with 
which many others among the guests of Lucerne had 
treated her, in accordance with the prevailing idea of that 
period, that any employee, no matter in what capacity, 
was to be regarded as an inferior in social rank. 

Absurd as the fact was, society elected to dictate the 
status of hirelings without the least regard to their per- 
sonal qualities or mental attainments. The necessity 
which compelled them to be paid for their services, lost 
them the right to occupy the position among ladies and 
gentlemen to which their respective and superior attain- 
ments entitled them. This was thought requisite to the 
maintenance of social order. 

On one occasion Vernois had intimated to Faith that 
she conferred unwonted honor upon her governess by 
treating her as a social equal. The girl had answered 
with indignant surprise : 

“ Do you mean to say that because I, an ignorant girl, 
employ a well-bred, intellectual, and dignified woman for 


THE NOTE OF DOOM. l8l 

the purpose of having my manners improved, my mind 
educated, and my tastes artistically developed, I am to be- 
have toward this superior intelligence with an insolent 
condescension that would insult her necessities and pro- 
voke her contempt of such narrow and stupid prejudice V* 

“You have put your case with the extravagance of your 
youth and your sex,” said Vernois. “It is by a strict 
observance of this difference in grade that our Southern 
society has become noted for its exclusiveness and purity 
in caste." 

“There must be a serious defect in our system some- 
where, [then," retorted the girl, cleverly, “since we are 
obliged to import our educational advantages, as in my 
own case with my ‘Yankee governess,’ as you are pleased 
to denominate Miss Draper; or else send our young 
people away to the North, or to Europe, to be taught the 
higher graces of life." 

Vernois concluded it was wisest to leave Faith’s devo- 
tion to her teacher alone, if he hoped to retain and aug- 
ment her regard for himself. And soon after, Warren, 
who had overheard the whole conversation, said, with 
earnest admiration of Faith’s pure principles : 

“My little friend, let no man, nor woman neither, 
change or disturb your intuitive convictions of right and 
wrong. If it is necessary to offend the conventionalities 
in order to do justice to virtue, your own brave, true 
heart will always make the choice for you, and sustain you 
in it." 


i 82 


THE NOTE OF DOOM, 


He had consistently practiced toward the governess this 
theory of independent action in matters of opinion, and 
more than once had interposed his chivalrous attentions to 
save Miss Draper from mortification by the indifference or 
neglect of less thoughtful men. 

She was herself too noble a creature to misinterpret or 
abuse the delicacy of his conduct toward her; but it 
bound her grateful interest to him ‘‘with hooks of steel." 

From this it may easily be imagined with what feelings 
she offered herself to share the cares of the sick-room with 
Warren’s mother. 

It was nightfall ere the doctor' left the bedside of the 
now delirious sufferer and joined Mr. Croft, who sat alone 
in his study. Hearing him enter there, Leda crossed 
from the parlors to hear his account of the invalid. 

The doctor was interrupted in the midst of his state- 
ment by hearing several persons enter the hall and ap- 
proach the library. 

Four men came across the threshold, and one of them 
stepped up to Mathew Croft, and showed him a writ of 
indictment for the crime of murder. 

This was the sheriff of . His deputy officer then 

approached, and fastened the hideous handcuffs of the 
malefactor about the wrists of the prisoner. 

The celebrated advocate of the law was then marched 
out from his own threshold toward the prison, whose 
occupants it had been his duty to prosecute or defend. 

Not a sound of protest or remonstrance passed his lips 


017 BOARD THE MADCAR. 183 

from first to last ; and only the white horror that blanched 
and contorted his features evinced his conviction that a 
doom inevitable and dreadful had overtaken him. 

As the guard conducted their prisoner down the hall, a 
wild, unearthly shriek resounded from above, followed by 
the fall of a human body. 

Glancing up the stairway, whence the rending cry had 
sped, Mathew Croft beheld, prone on her face, the black- 
robed form of the half-blind housekeeper, Mrs. Foster. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

ON BOARD THE MADCAP. 

Day is declining, and the sun sinks like a great world 
of dull red flame into the sea, off the coast of one of the 
Bahama Isles. The atmosphere is sultry and thick, and 
in the dead calm that broods over the sullen waves lurks 
the presence of a tropical storm. There is barely breeze 
enough to keep afloat the canvas of a small, doubtful- 
looking craft that heads toward the barren island, whose 
cliffs are just visible through the lurid, murky air to three 
men who stand upon the quarter-deck of thedingy vessel. 

One of these men holds a sea-glass toward the coast, and 
says to the others ; 

I don't see what better we can do than put in to shore 


184 


ON BOARD THE MADCAP. 


as fast as possible until the storm is past. This wretched 
hulk would never weather the equinoctial tempest that is 
too plainly rising. ” 

“She’s an ill-looking bark, I grant you; but the devil 
himself couldn’t sink her, unless he first made a hole in 
her bottom. ” 

This answer came from a swart, evil-visaged seaman, 
who wore the dress of a Minorcan sailor, and the coun- 
tenance of a Spanish cut-throat. The man to whom he 
spoke was, without doubt, a gentleman and an aristocrat. 
He replied to the sailor : 

“The reefs along this treacherous coast are like enough 
to make the hole in her bottom, and, as for the devil’s 
part in the Madcap’s fortunes, I think he has turned that 
over to you and your confrere, captain. ” 

‘ ‘ In that case, I must stand high in favor as a faithful 
steward to his infernal lordship, considering the little job 
the Madcap and we are doing for yourself at present, sir.” 

The gentleman made no rejoinder, but again lifted the 
glass and gazed upon the white, precipitous headland of 
the lonely island. 

The Minorcan turned to his companion — a short, stout 
man, with gray hair, and a grizzly mustache to match it, 
but with a good-natured and almost kindly aspect, whose 
eye, nevertheless, glittered alertly under thick, stubby 
brows, and betokened a temper easily roused and less 
easily laid to rest — and said : 

. “What think you, mate?" 


ON BOARD THE MADCAP, 185 

*‘If we three men were the sole live freight in the Mad- 
cap, rd say, fast enough, keep to the high seas; but, 
taking into account the flimsy bit of womankind we've 
got stowed away below, I reckon it would be most gentle- 
man-like to take shelter ; for, I'll warrant you, there'll be 
a rough storm to-night. " 

As the mate mentioned the female passenger of the 
Madcap the gentleman shuddered and gr6w pale, but said 
nothing. 

** About with her, then," said the captain ; and the next 
moment the keen, black bow of the Madcap was cleaving 
a foamy path through the bilious-looking water, making 
straight for the island coast, before a freshening breeze. 

Leaving the two sailors to their unaided task of man- 
aging the vessel, of which they were both owners and 
crew, the gentleman descended to a dingy cabin, now 
lighted by a single lantern that swung from the ceiling — it 
was already quite dark below the decks. 

Upon a soiled and worn couch, which formed a part of 
the meager furniture of the cabin, a woman was lying. 
Her wan cheek lay upon a delicate square of cambric that 
she had spread over the greasy, dark cushion, and her eyes 
were closed as if in slumber. A coarse woolen quilt from 
one of the state-rooms had been cast over her slender form, 
for the night was waxing chill. 

In the noises which the vessel made, and the rattling 
of chains and cordage on the upper deck, she did not hear 
the approach of the gentleman, and was not aware of his' 


i86 


01^ BOARD THE MADCAP, 


presence until he stood very near her, and, bending low 
over her head, laid his hand on her brow. , 

She gave a violent start — it was like a spasm — and a 
frightened cry broke from her lips, as she opened her eyes 
and drew herself away from the light touch of the man be- 
side her. 

**Did I wake you?” he asked, in a tone of mournful 
solicitude; then* added, penitently, as he moved a step 
backward and folded his arms: “I am sorry if I dis- 
turbed you, but I felt sp anxious lest you should be 
feverish and ill.” 

The lady reclosed her eyes with a shudder, as she re- 
plied : 

“ I believe I was almost asleep. Oh^ when will this 
miserable voyage end ?” 

Her voice had sunk to a piteous moan, as she asked the 
question. 

‘‘Very soon, I hope. You know I told you that the 
vessel had been driven from its course, and been be- 
calmed for a day and a night That is why we are out so 
long.” 

But we are moving now?” 

“Oh, yes. A wind has sprung up, and we are now 
making for an island that is in sight, where we must stop 
until the storm now brewing is past Our vessel is so 
small and Jpoor I could not think of trusting your life 
to its frail protection in one of these gales from the 
equinox.” 


ON BOARD THE MADCAP, 187 

** Shall we land? Are there people — women on the 
island ?” 

There was wild and almost desperate demand in the 
girl's tone, that told its own stoiy of the horror she felt at 
being alone on the vast deep, with only three men — two 
of them desperadoes, as any one might see at a glance — 
the third no less fit to be the guardian and custodian of a 
maiden's fair fame. 

^‘We can land, if you wish, and there may be inhab- 
itants, but I do not know just yet where we are. ” 

Oh, God ! why did you let me live to suffer a fate like 
this ?" cried the girl, with despairing passion, as she raised 
her clasped hands to heaven, and then pressed them to 
her anguished face, as if to shut out the horrid present 
from her sight and consciousness. 

For pity sake, don't — don't !" pleaded the man, falling 
on his knees before her, and attempting to take her hands. 

She sprang away from him as if his delicate, dark fingers 
had been adders that stung her to madness, and, in a 
sharp, suffering tone, cried : 

**Do not touch me, unless you want to drive me 
frantic. Leave me — leave me at once 1" 

^^‘What have I done to merit this from you? Do I not 
likewise suffer ten thousand deaths in the dire catastrophe 
that has brought you to this sore strait? Would I not 
give my life to release you from one pang that rends your 
sensitive soul ?” 

If I seem cruel or unjust, you must forgive me. Only 


i83 


SERPENT AND DOVE, 


try to place yourself in my stead, and you will know how 
little responsible I am for my wild words. ” 

“Poor child — poor little Faith! Believe me, I do 
comprehend it all, and it is like a dagger rankling in my 
heart I will go away now, but you must pardon me if I 
come sometimes to see that you want for no comfort that 
this wretched vessel can afford, otherwise I should never 
obtrude my presence on you. ” 

It was Julian Vernois who said this, as with proud 
humility he bowed over his folded arms, and retired up 
the gangway, leaving Faith Hilary alone in the cabin of a 
Spanish smuggling vessel — alone with the cruel torments 
which naturally assailed a chaste, sensitive, delicate flower 
of maidenhood like Faith in a situation so engirt with 
every danger that can fright the soul of womanhood. 
Shipwreck and death seemed the least. 


CHAPTER XX. 

SERPENT AND DOVE. 

After quitting Leda on the evening of the May fete, 
Julian Vernois had purposely led his unsuspecting com- 
panion in an opposite direction to the route proposed, 
which he knew to be frequented by parties going to and 
returning from “the cave,” 


SERPENT AND DOVE. - 189 

This was a beautiful sylvan spot, where the river curved 
inland for a considerable distance, making a smooth, 
lake-like pool of clear, shallow water, below whose sur- 
face the yellow sands gleamed like a bed of golden ore in 
the sunlight. 

A dense fringe of birch and willow boughs overhung the 
margin, and through these the different paths emerged to 
the brink of the bright water. 

Trusting herself to the guidance of her escort, and 
heedless of the fact that Leda and Miss Draper tarried so 
far behind. Faith walked on, engrossed with Vernois’ 
sprightly talk, until they reached the place already de- 
scribed as a fisher’s landing. 

“We must have taken the wrong course,” said Vernois, 
as he stopped to reconnoiter the surroundings, which were 
silent and lovely. 

‘ ‘ Let us go back, then, and make a fresh start, ” said 
Faith, blithely, nowise concerned at a mistake so easily 
retrieved. 

“Suppose we have a little row first? See, here is a 
nice little boat to our hand, and the river is calm as 
the Lucerne lake.” 

“That will he plersant, but is it not too late?” 

“Certainly not ; the party do not return for two hours 
yet, after moonrise. We need not go far.” 

Quite charmed with the idea. Faith made no further 
objections, and they were soon out upon the quiet tide. 

^‘We will let the current take us down the river, an4 


190 


SERPENT AND DOVE. 


row back to the steamboat landing in time to embark 
with the others/’ said Vernois, as he lay half reclined in 
the stern of the little boat, with one hand on the rudder, 
and the other holding the light shawl that she wore more 
closely about Faith’s shoulders. 

There was a keen smack of adventure in the incident 
that pleased the Bohemian taste of the creole. 

It was out of the commonplace to be lying there in the 
roseate sunset glow, with his face upturned to the pure, 
lovely eyes of a beautiful young maiden, fair enough to 
have been the heroine of a Greek idyl. 

His heart throbbed faster at the idea of having the girl 
all to himself, with nothing to hinder the free expression 
of that wizard tongue that had beguiled so many a gentle 
spirit from the “ways of peace and pleasantness” along 
the thorny paths of passion. 

The indefinable charm and fascination of the man never 
appealed so strongly to Faith’s innocent fancy as now, 
when she saw and felt it, encompassed and enhanced by 
the voluptuous beauty of the silent scene. 

Watching the soft flush of the brilliant evening play 
over his dark, seductive face, and hearing his low tones, 
accompanied by the rippling of the tides, she seemed to 
feel the inspiration that might have thrilled through Ari- 
adne’s breast when borne along the rose-wreathed Naxian 
shores, with the young Olympian at her feet 

Far better than her own heart did Vernois interpret the 
changeful glow upon the girl’s exquisite cheek, and the 


SERPENT AND DOVE, 


191 

sudden dropping of the pearly lids when his glance met 
hers with a ray too intense. 

He had guilefully led their talk into that vein of senti- 
ment where the very air about two sympathetic souls be- 
comes tremulous, as if surcharged with quivering forces, 
and in which there ceases to be need of direct phrase to 
make the throbbing feelings understood. 

Vernois had just finished repeating a few lines from a 
fervid pagan poem, on which Faith made no comment, 
and silence had succeeded — a dangerous silence that the 
creole knew well how to employ. 

The maiden's downcast face was half averted from his 
ardent gaze, that nevertheless burned her cheek till a scar- 
let spot had come out upon its whiteness ; her left hand 
lay on her lap, within easy reach of his lissome, womanish 
fingers. He laid them softly upon the cool, white wrist 
that her flowing sleeve of snowy muslin had left bare, and 
his dark, lustrous eyes were blazing like lamps. 

Simultaneously with the touching of their hands, one 
low, impassioned word trembled like a note of minor 
music on his beautiful lips ; • 

“Darling!" 

The sound broke the enchantment, for the girl drew 
herself from him with a violent motion that capsized the 
frail little wooden shell, and with a wild cry of fright she 
went down under the wave. 

ifi ili i(i -if: % 

Oblivious to all but the delight of the romance he was 


192 


SERPENT AND DOVE, 


weaving, Vernois had not observed that the swift down- 
ward tide had carried the little boat very far below where 
it was safe for so small and light a vessel to go. Nor had 
he taken the least thought of the mingling currents with 
which he would have to contend in his attempt to row the 
boat up the stream. 

Although a capital swimmer, he was physically too weak 
to battle long with the strong eddies that now circled 
round him and the limp white burden that he had caught 
and bore fast clasped in his left arm. 

Fortunately, the shock of the cold wave and that of her 
terror had rendered Faith quite unconscious, so that he 
had no mad struggles to impede his efforts to save her. 

Besides this, he was a man of wonderful nerve and 
presence of mind. The more extreme the occasion, the 
more cool and steady his brain. Danger sobered him in 
his wildest excesses. 

Keeping Faith's head well out of the water, he looked 
about him. 

It was ebb tide, and the currents were swift and strong 
toward the sea that lay scarcely a mile beyond. 

To try to stem them by swimming up stream with his 
lifeless burden was not to be thought of — to make his way 
to the nearest bank seemed almost as impossible. 

Straining his gaze seaward, he caught the gleam of a 
sail, touched By the bright rays of the setting sun. Some 
fishing craft returning to shore, he surmised ; and, delib- 


SERPENT AND DOVE. 


193 


erately turning himself on his back, he pillowed Faith's 
head on his breast, and let the waves bear , them out- 
ward. 

The vessel whose sails had attracted Vernois' notice 
proved to be no fishing-smack, but one of those low- 
rigged cutters used in coasting trade. 

To arrest the attention of the tall figure on the deck of 
the little vessel, within range of which he was with diffi- 
culty swimming now, was no great task, and, being 
already at anchor, she easily and quickly dispatched a boat 
to his assistance. 

It was not long before the cold, insensible form of the 
poor girl was disposed upon a couch in the cabin, with a 
heavy blanket wrapped about her saturated garments, and 
restoratives applied (with no mean skill) under the pre- 
scription of the stout mate of the Madcap, whose appear- 
ance has alxgady been described. 

With a return to consciousness, Faith was made to 
swallow a little strong cordial, which completed the resto- 
ration of her benumbed faculties sufficiently to relieve all 
apprehension concerning the result of the accident. In- 
stead of waking up to the full realization of what had hap- 
pened, the girl lapsed into a profound sleep — induced, 
perhaps, by the potent draught which had been adminis- 
tered, and by the transition from intense cold to the com- 
fortable warmth of the place. 

As soon as this condition was reached, Vernois accepted 
the oflfer of dry clothing which was made him by the tall 


194 


SERPENT AND DOVE, 


Minorcan, with whom and the mate he afterward withdrew 
to the deck. 

Here he discussed with the two men the chances of 
being carried ashore. 

He discovered enough from their talk to inform him 
that the unhappy chance had cast him aboard a Spanish 
smuggling vessel ; that the two foreigners were her owners, 
and composed her sole crew; that they could in no wise 
be induced to touch at the city of , neither to under- 

take the task of putting him ashore with his charge, and 
that the utmost he could obtain from them was a conces- 
sion to land him at the next port on the coast. 

After this, the creole walked apart in troubled self- 
communings, and, revolving the situation under all its 
aspects through his dark brain, he suddenly arrived at the 
desperate determination to turn the accident to®the fulfill- 
ment of his own designs in regard to Faith Hilary. 

While he would have shrunk from the cold-blooded 
planning and execution of such a scheme as the tissue 
of circumstances by which he had arrived at the present 
trying situation, he did not hesitate long about closing 
with the fiendish temptation of using it to compass his 
end. 

Yet it was a doubtful as well as most delicate enterprise. 
This one hope of reconciling the sensitive girl to the fate 
he proposed for her, lay jn operating so powerfully on her 
sympathies, and appealing so strongly to her womanhood, 
as to establish her faith in his reverence for her character 


SERPENT AND DOVE. 


195 


and person, and his own deep sorrow for the disaster. 
But even a credulous, immature girl is often a problem 
to baffle the most skillful and experienced libertine; and, 
although he approached the encounter armed with the 
most honorable proposals, and supported by a seemingly 
veritable necessity for Faith to place herself under his 
most sacred protection by assuming his name, he found 
that in that slight, willowy creature, whose fibers and 
nerves seemed made of a gossamer texture, there was a 
protean resistance to his sophistry that would have done 
credit to a moral acrobat. 

He opened the contest thus : 

It was past midnight, and the cutter was flying before a 
stiff wind southward, when Faith wakened from her long 
sleep. 

The heat from her limbs and the warmth of the cabin 
had thoroughly dried her light garments, and, oppressed 
by the weight of the heavy blanket, she had thrown it 
from her in her restless tossing, and lay in a careless and 
graceful attitude upon the low, broad sofa where they had 
first placed her. 

The dim light of a single lamp revealed to her the 
strangeness of the place, and, passing her hands over her 
eyes as if to rouse herself more fully from what seemed to 
be a dream, she looked about her. 

Slowly a sense of reality came to her, and then her 
thoughts recurred to her last conscious moment, ere her 
thoughtless movement had overturned the little skiff. 


196 


SERPENT AND DOVE. 


She started to a sitting posture, and peered nervously 
through the shadows of the dingy cabin. 

Next she became aware of the rapid motion of the 
vessel, and heard the creaking of its timbers as they met 
the swell of the sea that was growing boisterous. Saving 
these sounds,- all else was still as possible. 

low, smothered cry of fear escaped the girl. She had 
hardly uttered it when a voice behind said, gently : 

“What is it, dear child.?” 

She turned with a movement of momentary relief and 
pleasure at hearing a jtone that she knew, and met the 
dark, quiet face .of the creole. He was sitting just in rear 
of the sofa, with his elbow resting on its high, carved 
back, and his head leaned on his hand. He had evi- 
dently been keeping watch over Faith’s slumbers. There 
was a sad pathos of mingled tenderness and compassion 
in his large, beautiful eyes, that sometimes wore the 
touching expression of a fawn’s. 

“Oh! where are we, Mr. Vernois? Why did you not 
speak sooner? I was so scared, and felt so lost to waken 
in this awful, still place !” 

She spoke with hurried, panting breath, looking eagerly 
into Vernois' face. 

“I did not want to startle you till you had quite waked 
up. You need have no fear, we are safe. I have not left 
you for a moment.” 

“But where are we? This is a ship we are on, is it 
not? I hear waves, and feel the plunging motion of a 


SERPENT AND DOVE, 


197 


moving vessel. It is like when I crossed the gulf coming 
from Texas.” 

He thought it best to soothe her by affecting to think 
lightly of their mischance. 

“Yes,” he said, smiling, “we are aboard a little coast- 
ing vessel that picked us up out of the water in a half- 
drowned condition, where the tide had borne us out to 
the mouth of the river. Luckily I clung to you so fast 
that the waves could not take you from me, even after I 
lost the power of volition. ” 

Faith had turned white, and shivered at the first part of 
his recital ; but at the last sentence, into which he threw a 
tender meaning that he meant to reach her heart, her 
cheek flushed hotly, and her lids dropped. 

She remembered now, with a strange, wild fluttering of 
the heart, the incident which had immediately preceded 
the accident of which she was the dipect cause. She said, 
softly and timidly : 

“ What vessel is it, and where are we going?” 

“We are on a Spanish coaster, bound for the West 
Indies on its return from a cruise along the shore as far 
up as the Carolinas. But I have induced the captain to 
put us ashore at the nearest port. I hope to land you safe 
and sound at Lucerne before many days.” 

“How many?” 

“Ah I well, I cannot say precisely. You know we 
cannot calculate too certainly upon a sailer, You see, it 


ig8 


SERPENT AND DOVE, 


is not as if we had a propeller astern of us. We must 
wait on wind and tide. ” 

Faith made no answer, but looked very grave. She was 
not made of the stuff that collapses under pressure, or 
that wastes its vitality in useless bewailings. A light sigh 
escaped her unawares. She was too generous to make the 
catastrophe worse by complaints. 

‘ ‘ Can you not go back to sleep now ? I will watch over 
you till morning.” 

His manner was considerate and delicate as a brother's, 
and Faith smiled gratefully as she answered : 

*‘Qh, no. I am not in the least sleepy nor tired now; 
but you must be, if you have been sitting there long. 
Suppose you lie down and let me keep awake ?” 

“No, I could not thing of that; we will both keep 
awake, unless you will retire to the state-room that has 
been put at your disposal. In that case I will consent to 
have a nap.” 

“That will be far the most sensible arrangement 
Which is my state-room ?” 

“Here.” Vernois opened the door to one of two narrow 
apartments. 

“Are there many passengers?” she asked, a little nerv- 
ously, glancing round again upon the small saloon. 

“Not many,” replied Vernois, instantly afterward clos- 
ing the door on her to avoid any more awkward questions, 
until daylight and the refreshment of sleep should have 
lent their sustaining influence to the ordeal of revelation. 


THE MADCAP TAKES A PRIZE, 


199 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE MADCAP TAKES A PRIZE. 

Faith awoke early the next morning from the uneasy 
sleep that came over her after retiring to her state-room, 
with a sound like the roar of artillery booming around 
her, and the little vessel wildly plunging about amid 
furious waves. 

She listened for some sound of life in the cabin, from 
which she was separated only by a thin partition; but 
an hour went by without a sign to assure her that any 
human creature was near. 

At the end of that time she was relieved from her feel- 
ing of utter isolation by hearing a rap on her door. 

She opened it at once, and found that her visitor was her 
companion in misery, Julian Vernois. 

The lamp still burned in the cabin, and in its wan, 
sickly rays the olive-hued face of the creole wore a haggard 
pallor, which was enhanced by the almost preternatural 
luster of his splendid eyes. 

He held a cup of black coffee in one hand and a small 
plate of sea-biscuit in the other, and smiled, as he said : 

am playing stewardess to you, you see. You must 
take something to refresh you. Have you been sleeping?" 

Yes; but I have been awake and up for an hour.” 


200 THE MADCAP TAKES A PRIZE. 

Faith took the cup and plate, as she answered. 

“Why did you not let me know it? You must have 
been both lonely and frightened. ” 

At his request she entered the cabin, where he placed 
the things for her on the narrow table that stood in the 
center of the apartment, and set a chair for her beside it. 

Faith sipped the coffee in silence. When she had 
emptied the cup, without touching the bread, she said : 

‘ ‘ Where are the other passengers ?” 

Vernois hesitated a moment, then replied, a little ner- 
vously ; 

“ On deck." 

“On deck ! In this weather?" 

“That is to say, the captain and mate are on deck. 
We are the only passengers. " 

The girl fixed her eyes on him in a startled way 

“Is it true," she asked, her face paling at the thought, 
“that only the captain, the mate, and ourselves are on 
this ship ?" 

“There is a third — the cook." 

“Where is she?"' 

“The cook," answered Vernois, reluctantly, “is getting 
breakfast just beyond there," pointing to a door that sep- 
arated the cabin from the kitchen. 

“Can I go there?" 

“Yes, if you like. Take my arm; the vessel rocks so 
that you may fall in walking." 


THE MADCAP TAKES A PRIZE. 


201 


She placed her hand on his arm, and was conducted to 
the kitchen. 

Vernois opened the door, and Faith beheld a tall man, 
with the countenance and the dress of a Malay. He was 
busy about a small cooking-stove. 

Without a word, Faith turned away, and was led back 
to her seat by the table. 

She bent her cheek on her hand in a thoughtful attb 
tude. 

Vernois took down some books from a row of small 
shelves fastened against the wall, and, placing them near 
her, said : 

“Perhaps you may find something here to amuse you. 
While you look over them, I will go up and view the 
weather. ” 

Soon after this the Malay came in to lay the things for 
breakfast, and Faith took her seat upon the couch at a 
little distance, while he prepared the table. 

When all was ready, the cook ascended to the upper 
decks, and, immediately after, Vernois, accompanied by 
the captain and mate, appeared. 

The two sailors made a respectful salute to Faith — ad- 
dressing her as “madam” — which made her start, turn 
red to the roots of her hair, and look from them to Ver- 
nois in a piteous way that caused him to feel like the 
villain that he was. 

She declined to partake of the morning meal, declaring 
that she needed nothing more than the coifee she had 


202 


THE MADCAP TAKES A PRIZE. 


already taken. With the intuitive sixth sense” of a 
woman, she occupied herself in studying the counte- 
nances of the two men at the table. 

The dark, sinister face of the Minorcan, with his few 
and cautiously uttered sentences, and his roving, furtive 
eye, that was at once everywhere and nowhere, so chilled 
her blood that it seemed to trickle through her veins in an 
icy stream. 

Turning from this forbidding physiognomy to that of 
the mate, she met a pair of pale-blue eyes, with a silvery 
light in them, fixed on her face intently. Curiosity and 
compassion were equally blended in the hardy lines of the 
bronzed visage that fronted her, and this good matured 
pity appalled her almost as much as the somber, insincere 
look of the other. The mate's pale eye seemed to hold 
her gaze in spite of her effort to turn it away. A general 
conversation, constrained on the part of all the partici- 
pants, took place, and it was a great relief to Faith when 
it was over. 

After tea, when the storm had subsided, Faith was in- 
duced to go up on deck with Vernois, for the wind was 
now southerly and warm. The kindly mate had put at 
Faith’s service a sea-chest, filled with shawls, and mantles, 
and stuffs, both white and colored, that he was taking, he 
said, as a present to his daughter, in South America. Of 
these she had selected a soft, bright shawl, and one of 
those gay, striped petticoats so much in vogue at that day. 
Looping her white flannel dress, which the sea-water had 


THE MADCAP TAJtES A PRIZE. 203 

not much damaged, over this gaudy petticoat, and twisting 
the shawl gracefully about her shoulders, she managed to 
effect a toilet at once unique and captivating. The 
dread of her strange position was beginning to wear off 
under the reverential kindness of Vernois, and the respect- 
ful deference of the two seamen. 

‘‘It is a night of tropical splendor I” said Vernois, who 
leaned with Faith upon the deck-rail in the bow of the boat. 

“We are mighty close to the tropics, sir,” said the 
mate, who was passing. 

“What is this latitude?" asked Faith, with anxiety. 

“Couldn’t exactly say, madam;" and the man disap- 
peared aft. 

“Why does he call me ‘madam’?” asked Faith. 

“ He thinks — he thinks you are my wife " 

Your wife r 

The words came with a gasp — she was deadly pale. 

“Yes; you must not be angry — it was the only way to 
make your position appear safe. I thought of telling 
them you were my sister, but when I saw the young cap- 
tain I feared he might become gallant, if we had to re- 
main any length of time on his ship, and so I took the 
course I deemed wisest to protect you from all unpleas- 
antness. 

“Oh, Mr. Vernois!" 

It was like the sick cry of a wounded child; and, as 
she uttered it, she let her pale face fall upon her arm that 
rested on the railing. 


204 


THE MADCAP TAKES A PRtZE. 


It would have touched the heart of a devil to look upon 
her, having heard all the deep humiliation that rose from 
her heart in that helpless cry. Vernois was only a human 
dewl, and his manhood did ache in sympathy with the 
meek pain of the innocent creature who owed this bitter 
hour to his cruel selfishness. But his sympathy with her 
suffering seemed only as fresh fuel to his passion for the 
beautiful, flower-like woman who was so utterly at his 
mercy. There leaped to his heart an irresistible desire to 
raise the sweet, bowed head and clasp it to his breast. He 
had called her his wife, and he wildly longed to make her 
his own forever — not more with the craving of passion 
than with all that was left in him of a nobler sentiment. 

He bent above her now, touching her bright hair with a 
soft pressure of his warm palm, and murmured low : 

“And why not let it be so, dearest? Why not be my 
Faith — my hope, my love, and my life ?” 

She quickly lifted her head, shaking from it his caress- 
ing hand, and, rising to her feet, while her face and form 
assumed the indescribable dignity that is the crowning 
grace of a true woman, she said, in a clear, firm voice : 

“Mr. Vernois, is this a time or place for you to speak 
such words to a lone girl, unprotected save by your own 
chivalry, unguided save by her instincts, and oppressed as 
I am by a thousand pangs that you cannot, or, at least, do 
not understand ?” 

“But, Faith, darling, I love you so, and so yearn to be 
your comfort and support in all this bitter trial I Forgive 


THE MADCAP TAKES A PRIZE. 


205 


and have pity on me, for I cannot live near your presence 
and not utter the deep ecstatic love that fills my whole 
being if I but see you, or hear your voice !" 

Her tone was almost stern, as she replied ; 

If it were true that you love me, you would have died 
rather than hurt me by those words. Let me make my- 
self understood, now and for all time. Whatever might 
have been, had you asked my hand under the sanction of 
honor, and the protection of my social surroundings, rest 
assured you have forever forfeited your right to my confi- 
dence by the unfair advantage you have taken of our 
mutually unhappy situation. It was not necessary that 
you should so misrepresent my position in speaking of 
me to those strange men, and it never shall be necessary 
that I shall occupy it. " 

With these hot words vibrating lowly on the moon-lit 
air, and her fair face glowing with indignant pride and 
resolute heroism. Faith Hilary turned away from her com- 
panion and passed swiftly to her state-room. 

After that night she refused to be alone for one moment 
with Vernois, and, whenever forced to be left with him, she 
'either retreated to the close discomfort of her state-room, 
or manifested such aversion as obliged him to leave her 
presence. 

But Vernois felt that he held in his hand the winning 
card, and, if all things else failed him, he would surely 
play it. 

A deacLcalm succeeded the hurricane that had swept the 


2o6 


THE MADCAP TAKES A PRIZE. 


Madcap far to the south-east, and with the first breeze that 
filled her sails, after lying nearly two days on a sea like 
glass, she came in sight of the island referred to in a 
former chapter. 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Night, bodeful and gloomy as a vision of Hades, had 
fallen ere the Madcap touched at the island, to whose 
coast she had been guided by a bonfire that blazed upon 
the tallest cliff of the headland. 

She had shown a signal of distress while still a good way 
from shore, and a boat, manned by four stout rowers, had 
come to meet her just off the sand-bar, over which it was 
impossible for even so small a sailing-vessel as the Spanish 
cruiser to pass at low tide unpiloted by a skillful guide. 

The captain held a colloquy with the wreckers before 
deciding on approaching nearer to the island. He ascer- 
tained that it was a mere fishing village, whose inhabitants 
were mostly comprised of those who followed the preca- 
rious trade of wreckers. 

The Minorcan, who called himself Senor Valasco, pro- 
posed to send his passengers ashore, if they wished to 
land, but expressed his preference to keep on his route 
southward the moment it should be safe to leave the small 
harbor that lay just ahead. In that case, he thought they 
had best remain aboard the cutter. 

While the little vessel was cautiously making its way 
through the narrow channel under the direction of the 
pilot from the shore, Vernois went down into the cabin to 


THE MADCAP TAKES A PRIZE, 207 

consult with Faith upon the question of landing or re- 
maining aboard the Madcap. 

He had not attempted to converse with her since the 
evening that she had so emphatically repulsed him, except 
in the interview earlier on this same evening, the discour- 
aging result of which has been already narrated. 

It was with some uneasiness that Vernois again sought 
Faith’s presence. He found her seated at the table in the 
cabin, reading. 

Anxiety and sleeplessness had made a marked change 
in the fresh beauty of the girl ; but there was a touching 
pathos in her pure pallor, and the weary droop of her lids, 
that made her loveliness all the more appealing to the sen- 
sibilities of the sterner nature of a man. 

‘‘I am sorry to annoy you," began Vernois, in a gentle, 
deprecatory tone, as he stopped on the opposite side of 
the table in front of her; “but the captain wishes to know 
your pleasure about going ashore." 

“What do you advise?" she asked, in a troubled way. 

“I should say by all means remain on board for to- 
night. It is true that a terrible storm is rising, but we 
shall be anchored in safe waters, and it is impossible to 
judge of the advantages of the island, which is only a 
fishing village, until daylight, when we can reconnoiter. 
I will go ashore at the earliest possible moment, and 
bring you a report " 

“Yes, I think that will be best" 

She returned to her book, while her brewt heaved with 


2o8 the madcap takes a prize, 

a long, deep sigh. The cruel strain on her patience had 
worn her sadly. 

All the prognostics concerning the weather were ful- 
filled. During the whole night long, in the roar and 
surge of the breakers out at sea, one seemed to hear the 
frantic howls of a pack of fiends, unchained from their 
dismal caves in the under- world. 

But the storm was brief as it was violent, and the next 
morning emerged from the gates of the east in rosy splen- 
dors, treading its bright way over a calm sea. 

* ‘ Shall you go ashore with the wreckers when they re- 
turn this morning, sir?" asked the Spaniard of Vernois, at 
breakfast. 

*‘Yes; I will look about, and perhaps madam would 
prefer stopping here on the chance of catching a north- 
ward-bound vessel, rather than be taken farther south. ” 

“I would certainly- prefer it, if these people here are 
not savages,’’ said Faith, sending a glance full of indigna- 
tion upon Vernois, who had called her “madam” for the 
first time in her hearing. 

The Minorcan cast down his swart face, over which a 
smile like that of a young tiger had flitted. Evidently he 
had watched the drama between this reputed husband and 
wife with a degree of interest that they little suspected. 

The mate was not present during the discussion; per- 
haps if he had been, many dark passages yet to be recorded 
in our tale had not transpired. 

Within an hour Vernois went ashore with two of the 


MAJV TO MAJSr. 


209 


islanders. After investigating the vicinity for several hours, 
and forming his determination to advise Faith against land- 
ing, he returned to the boat, and was soon rounding the 
little headland beyond which the Madcap was anchored. 
But lo ! the sunny little haven slept like a lake with never 
a speck on its bosom. Afar to the west gleamed the sails 
of the vanished ship. The Madcap had borne away his 
prize. 


CHAPTER XXIL 

MAN TO MAN. 

Senor Diez Valasco, captain of the Madcap, was the 
scape-grace son of a wine merchant living at Mahon, on 
the Island of Minorca. The father bore a character of the 
highest respectability, but having committed the mistake 
of marrying the wrong woman — a pretty ballet girl — his 
children had disappointed his expectations. 

At an early age the boy, Diez, rebelled against the dis- 
cipline of the school at which he was placed, and went to 
sea without the knowledge of his parents. 

He made a voyage aboard a trading vessel as cabin-boy, 
and was absent in the East Indies for three years, where he 
learned the craft, the views, and the tastes of the Orien- 
tals, without acc^uiring any of their virtues. He returned 


210 


■^MAN TO MAN, 


at the end of this period to the paternal roof, and was 
coolly informed by the implacable old merchant that he 
might keep his career in his own hands, as he (the father) 
had no idea of allowing his hard-earned wealth to be 
squandered by a renegade. 

Perhaps the old man saw too plainly that his love, 
pains, and expense would be more than wasted on the 
the wild, reckless youth, whose daring was only equaled 
by his utter contempt of honor and religion. 

From bad to worse young Diez kept on his lawless 
course through many a desperate and disgraceful episode, 
till he finally attained the dignity of captain of a privateer 
and smuggling vessel, of which a small share was owned 
by Graff Conway. 

The mate had begun life as an English sailor, but hav- 
ing joined in a conspiracy to scuttle the ship, was dis- 
covered, and with his fellow criminals convicted and sent 
to Botany Bay. He had made his escape, changed his 
name, and, by a succession of strange adventures, became 
at last associated with the young Spaniard, Valasco, in 
the dangerous enterprise of engaging in the smuggling 
trade. 

But apart from his professional vices, Graff Conway was 
a man in whose heart the humanities could never be 
utterly stifled. 

He was brave as a lion, and tender-hearted as a woman, 
when his better nature was appealed to — in shor^ one of 
those anomalous creatures for fhe possession of whose 


MAJ^ TO MAN. 


2II 


soul the good and the bad angel wage unceasing conflict. 
When his worst passions were fairly roused, he became a 
fiend — when his heart ruled him he was the veriest lamb. 
In “business affairs,” as he termed all matters connected 
with his trade, he was absolutely devoid of conscience ; 
but this did not prevent his having a very high sense of 
honor with regard to other matters, especially where the 
weak sex was concerned. 

The man was a husband and father, and faithful in both 
relations as far as his personal conduct ; and, as much as 
was practicable, he kept his family in ignorance of the 
wicked side of his character. 

As for the third person aboard the little vessel, the Ma- 
layan cook, he was simply a tool of Valasco’s — man-of-all- 
work on the ship, and, in time of danger, sailor or 
soldier, as was required — speaking no language but his 
native tongue, having no affections and no ties — a ma- 
chine, in fact. 

Valasco believed him to be devoid of passions. In 
this he was mistaken. The silent, unsympathetic Malay 
was literally devoured by two passions — avarice and re- 
venge. 

Of the first Valasco was the minister, being generous in 
his donations to the Malay. Of the last, Valasco was 
the destined victim, having come between the Malay and 
his love. 

Between the captain and the mate of the Madcap ex- 
isted no bond, save their associated interests in the vessel. 


212 


TO MAN, 


ahd their mutual participation in the perils and prizes of 
the cutter.'* This last clause formed one of the articles of 
agreement sworn to and signed by each of them when 
their co-partnership was created. 

Perhaps Senor Valasco had forgotten this passage when 
he weighed anchor and sailed away from the creole, bear- 
ing off Faith Hilary. 

It happened in this wise : 

When the weather was fair, or the Madcap at anchor, 
the captain and the mate took it by turns to seek repose 
in their respective state-rooms, one of which was now 
devoted to the use of their fair passenger. 

On the morning after their arrival in the island harbor, 
it was the mate's turn to sleep, and it was during his pro- 
found slumbers that Vernois set out for the island. 

No sooner had the boat bearing the creole disappeared 
around the headland beyond which lay the village, than 
Captain Valasco summoned the Malay, and, with his as- 
sistance, weighed anchor and hoisted sail before a favoring 
wind. 

Faith, who had not left her state-room since breakfast, 
but lay in her berth reading a book, concluded that 
Vernois had returned from his inspection of the island, 
and had decided it was safest for them to proceed with the 
cruisers on their way. Therefore the motion of the ship 
gave her no other concern than a feeling of disquietude at 
finding herself condemned to a protracted season of this 
dismal imprisonment. Not the most remote suspicion of 


MAAT TO MAN, 


213 


Vernois' real designs had, or could have, penetrated her 
pure mind ; nor did she doubt for an instant the intention 
of the captain to land them at the first possible point 
Her sole anxiety, after the painfully embarrassing circum- 
stances that encompassed her, was for the friends who 
would be filled with alarms for her safety, and consumed 
with doubts as to the cause and manner of her disappear- 
ance. The hope of being restored to Lucerne before her 
mother could be apprised of her mischance, alone saved 
Faith’s gentle, affectionate heart from the keenest anguish. 
It was not without a sense of relief that she felt herself 
once more moving onward, and the thought of reach- 
ing Lucerne reconciled her to remaining aboard the 
Madcap. 

Resuming her book, she endeavored to banish her 
gloomy reflections, and the movement of the ship over a 
calm sea so soothed her, that she soon fell into a deep, 
sweet sleep, from which she did not waken until the day 
was far spent. Nature was repaying herself for the restless 
tossings of the previous night. 

Meantime the mate had arisen from his couch, drenched 
his gray head and grizzly beard in a pail of cold water, 
arranged with decency the collar of his blue flannel 
blouse, combed his locks, and repaired to the quarter- 
deck, along which he found the young captain pacing 
slowly. 

Graff Conway had a keen eye in his head, as we have 
stated elsewhere, and it was well skilled in tracing the 


214 


MAJV' TO MAN, 


meanings of the shifting lights and shades upon the faces 
of those with whom he came in contact. 

As the mate advanced, Valasco threw up his saturnine 
face, and there shot a gleam strangely like defiance from 
the lurid darkness of his eyes. 

“I wonder what devilment he’s been up to nowP'* 
thought Conway, stopping short, with his bushy head 
thrown a little to one side, like an eagle’s when it poises 
itself to reconnoiter. Then he said aloud : 

“Where’s the gentleman, cap’n?” 

“He concluded to stay ashore, ” replied the Minorcan, 
sulkily, and turning in his walk so that his back was 
toward the keen, shrewd countenance of the mate. 

“Eh? And how did the pretty little madam like be- 
ing taken on the island ?” 

“She didn’t go. The creole gave me his check on the 

Bank of for a thousand dollars, if I’d land him and 

take the girl on to the nearest port. Of course you’ll get 
half of the money. ” 

“What does she say to being deserted by her husband?” 

“She doesn’t know a word of it yet.” 

“What?” roared the mate, in a sudden burst of fury, 
that lit up his pale eyes with a sulphurous glare. 

“I say she doesn’t know it yet; and, what is more, I 
don’t imagine she’ll care. He’s no more her husband 
than you are. I heard this much from her own lips.” 

He then related the scene and conversation that had 
transpired on deck the night when Faith upbraided Ver- 


MAJ\r TO MAA. 


215 


nois for his falseness and baseness in placing her in such a 
position. 

“ How did you hear all this 

“I was lying in the moonlight, behind some coils of 
rope, near \^here they sat down, and, not wishing to em- 
barrass them or discommode myself, I remained quiet, 
and got the benefit of their talk. She hates him — ^you 
must have seen that.’" 

“Yes; but I saw something else as well — he loves her, 
and forty cable chains could not have drawn him from this 
ship if he had known it was to part him from her. I say, 
cap’n, you’re a deep one — but I know you I” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, /h's — if you’ll pardon plain talk. You may 
have done the girl a service by leaving the creole behind — 
and I think you have ; but if you think me so great an 
ass as not to know why you left him without his have, 
you’ve known Graff Conway to precious little purpose.” 

“See here, mate,” said Valasco, squaring his tall, 
brawny frame right in front of Conway, “/’m captain of 
the Madcap, and her passengers are my affair — do you 
understand?” 

There was no mistaking the meaning of the devilish 
scowl on the captain's black brows, and Conway knew 
right well that an adamantine purpose lay underneath 
those sinister remarks. But the grizzly old tar was not the 
man to hold his peace for either bark or bite of the fierce 
wolf he knew Valasco to be when his darker passions were 


2i6 


MAAT TO MAN. 


fairly roused. He did not wink an eye, nor stir a fiber, 
as he answered, with his steely glance quivering over the 
Minorcan’s face : 

“Yes, I understand that, and more, perhaps, than you 
care I should. But, Diez Valasco, I want you to under- 
stand that the pale little girl who is now aboard the 
Madcap is not the ‘affair’ of captain and mate, but man 
and man.” 

“Aha! you ve had an eye to the beauty of our 
pretty little cargo, have you ? Ho 1 ho I ho ! I reckon 
we’ll let her choose between us, mate ; I fancy I’ll have 
the odds on your sixty winters. ” 

The scorn of the captain’s bitter laughter rang out over 
the deck, and Conway waited quietly till it was hushed. 
His tone was low, but clear as a bell, when he said : 

‘ ‘ Captain, you’ve dared many a dark deed in your life, 
short as it is ; but, by all the powers in heaven, I swear 
you shall not utter a word that a saint might not hear in 
the pure ears of that child, while a pulse beats in Graff 
Conway’s breast !” _ 

With this the old sailor turned sharply away and de- 
scended to the cabin. 


GI^AFF CONWAY. 


ZI7 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

GRAFF CONWAY. 

It was the state-room of the mate which had been 
offered by him for the lady's use the first night which 
Faith spent aboard the cutter. With the deftness of a 
sailor the old man had tidied up the little apartment, 
taking from it his own ** traps," and adding to its scant 
furniture whatever the ship afforded that was likely to 
contribute to the comfort of the fair occupant for whom 
it was destined during at least three or four days, as they 
then thought. Clean, fresh linen was about the only 
luxury connected with it, but there was nothing wanting 
to make it a passably comfortable dormitory. 

Over the berth and the narrow settle against the wall 
the old seaman had spread some of the pretty, bright 
chintz from the store of material he was carrying to his 
daughter, and upon the little shelves suspended around 
he had placed a few books, and shells, and bits of coral. 
To the door of this little closet he now approached. 
Unconsciously to himself his footfall grew lighter, and his 
hard, weather-beaten face more reverent, as he neared the 
threshold, made sacred by the virginal presence that ten- 
anted its interior, and over whose safety he was now the 
self-constituted guardian. He rapped gently on the door. 


2i8 


GRAFF CONWAY. 


The sweet, fresh voice of the girl called out : 

“What is it, Mr. Vernois?" 

“It is not Mr. Vernois, if you please, but Conway, 
the mate." 

The door was instantly unclosed, and Faith's lovely 
face, flushed from slumber, appeared at the entrance. 
The dewy luster of an infant's eyes shone in hers as she 
lifted them to the kind face of the mate, whose gentle 
acts of thoughtfulness had gratefully impressed the lonely 
girl. 

“I came to see if you needed anything,” he said, 
kindly. 

“No; I was just awake after a long nap — I slept so 
little last night. ” 

“That's right — nothing better for young people than 
sleep and sunshine. Won't you put on your shawl and 
come on deck for awhile ?” 

Faith thought of meeting Vernois, and said : 

“No; I believe I'd rather not.” 

Just at that moment the captain passed the door, and 
entered his state-room. The mate was due at his post 
He said, in a significant way, to Faith : 

“You will oblige me by coming up for a minute — 
there is no one there.” 

She instantly wrapped her shawl round her and went 
with him. The intuitions of children and innocent women 
are so clear and true I 

“Sit here.” He had placed a cloak over a pile of 


GJ^AFF CONWAY. 


219 


canvas for her, and she took the seat. The sun was 
almost gone, but there was still a rich, golden brightness 
in the air, and a warmth. The sea was like jasper. 
** Would you mind it very much if you heard that your 
companion had staid behind on the island?” 

The rough seaman was too much used to plain speech 
to be very adroit in his manner of making the girl aware 
of her present situation. She looked up in a blank, in- 
credulous way, and said : 

“Sir?” 

“Would you be very sorry if you knew that I should 
have charge of you solely until we can land you safely 
with those who can take you to your own people ?” 

“Do you mean, sir, that Mr. Vernois has indeed left 
the vessel — and — and me?” 

“Yes, my child; I mean just that, or else the vessel 
left him ; I can't exactly tell which, as I was fast asleep 
when we sailed from the island. The cap'n says Vernois 
preferred to remain on shore.” 

“Which you doubt — is it not S(^” 

“Yes; I doubt if he had any say about it. Our cap’n 
is sometimes a mighty impatient fellow, and, maybe, 
Vernois staid ashore too long to suit him. But you sha’n’t 
be the worse for his absence, my dear. I’ve got a sweet, 
good girl of my own — near about your age, too. I’ll just 
imagine I'm taking care of my own little Floy, instead of 
a strange young lady; and you’ll do me a favor to put 
yourself as much in Floy’s place as you can.” 


220 


GJ^AFF CONWAY. 


There was something in the old man’s manner that 
went directly to Faith’s heart, and unlocked all its simple 
trust to him. She smiled a little as she answered : 

“You are very good to say so. Perhaps, as I’m already 
in some of Floy’s clothes, it will not be very hard for me 
to fancy myself Floy’s self. But what will become of Mr. 
Vernois?” 

There was no pain or anxiety in the inquiry, only a 
humane interest in the fortunes of her fellow-sufferer. 
Conway divined this. He said, with a re-assuring air : 

“Oh, he’s a man, and can manage his escape some- 
how. At any rate, he is on terra firmay with his own 
species, and won’t starve. For the rest, I suppose a 
passing vessel may pick him up. It is only of you that I 
shall think now.” 

Faith tried to conceal the feeling of relief that had 
come over her at the thought that she was freed from at 
least one of her causes of distress. She had no idea that 
Vernois’ absence could render her situation more com- 
plicated or embarrassing. 

“How much longer shall I have to be at sea?” she 
asked, showing that she had for the moment dismissed 
Vernois' fate from her thoughts. The mate drew his own 
conclusions from this significant fact. He said : 

“ I hope only a few days, at most ; but in case it might 
be longer — we can never calculate on wind and weather — 
you’d as well busy yourself with fitting out your wardrobe 
from Floy’s chest of stuffs. Of course, you can sew?” 


GRAF^ CONWAY. 


Ill 


*‘0h, yes, indeed and nicely, too/’ 

“I thought so. I can generally spot ‘a neat, home- 
bred Phylis' from one of your know-nothing, do-nothing 
fine ladies.” 

“ I^ow can you tell?” 

“Well, that's more than I know; instinct, I suppose. 
The scientists set all that can’t be explained down to 
instinct, don’t they?” 

“ I am afraid I do not know much about science.” 

“So much the better; it’s a poor thing for women to 
waste time on.” 

“Or perhaps women are poor things to waste science 
on,” returned Faith, with the first outright peal of laughter 
that had escaped her lips since her being taken aboard the 
vessel. The atmosphere about her seemed to have light- 
ened, or some heavy oppression taken from her spirit. 

Poor child 1 She did not dream that other causes for 
depression, even more serious than Vernois’ love, might 
lurk near her. 

“You can’t expect me to assent to so ungallant a 
proposition. When I think of my dear old wife, and 
Floy, and the other girls, I can’t feel that ‘women are 
poor things,’ on any account.” 

“Tell me about Floy.” 

“Wait a bit, then, till I look round the ship.” 

After the inspection the mate came back, and, seating 
himself on a camp-stool in front of Faith, spoke to her 
so tenderly and truly of his home and his family, that the 


222 


G/^AFJ^ CONWAY. 


girl was entirely won over to perfect confidence in the 
worthiness of Floy’s father. 

You must be a very good man, or so pure and sweet 
a creature as your daughter couldn’t love you so dearly,” 
she said, after listening to one of the girl’s letters, .which 
Conway had taken from the breast of his blouse and, with 
great pride, read aloud to her. 

“No, my dear, not a good man, but a loving one to 
my own ; and that amounts to the same thing with 
women, I think.” 

“Do you? I don’t think I could love any one whom 
I believed to be bad.” 

“Perhaps not; but if you had loved any one, it would 
be next to impossible to make you believe that person to 
be bad.” 

“Yes; I am sure it would.” 

“Also, I am certain if you found out their badness 
after you loved people, you would go on loving all the 
same, maybe more. It is the way with women.” 

“You seem to know a great deal about women’s ways 
and natures,*' said Faith, archly. 

“I have a right to, my dear, when I've six of my 
own, counting in the dame. Floy is the youngest of 
the brood.” 

The Malay came up to summon the mate and the 
passenger to supper. It was the cook's business to stay on 
deck and keep a lookout beyond and about the cutter 
while the captain and mate took their meals together. 


GRAFF CONWAY, 


223 


Missing Vernois' dark face and brooding eyes from the 
company seemed to change the whole aspect of things 
to Faith Hilary ; for, without being able to understand 
just why it was so, she had felt a natural aversion to the 
man ever since the night he had revealed his feeling for 
her so plainly. 

She had never afterward met the fervid glow of his 
glance without a burning sense of indignation, remember- 
ing that he had represented her as being his wife, and how 
he had selfishly urged his love upon her. 

She was almost gay this evening in her talk across the 
table with Graff Conway, and something like the old 
childish freedom crept into her manner under the pro- 
tecting influence of the old man’s presence. 

It must be kept in mind that all the circumstances of 
tho girl’s life had been so unexceptional, that her conduct 
cannot be judged by the fixed rules of conventional 
propriety. 

Apart from the native adaptability of her character, the 
utter absence of restraint in her early training had tended 
to develop an elasticity of temperament which may easily 
account for the rebound her spirits seemed to have made 
from the saddest dejection to this comparative mirth- 
fulness. 

A rosy brightness animated her smiling face, and the 
furtive eyes of the young captain were fairly dazzled by 
the freshness of her beauty. 

He, too, seemed to have caught the infection of cheer- 


224 


GRAFF CONWAY. 


fulness from his two companions, who sat on either hand 
of him at table, for his somber countenance lit up as he 
joined in the conversation, and now and then his brilliant, 
sharp-pointed teeth gleamed against the intense blackness 
of his soft, silky mustache and beard in a way that 
changed the whole expression of his face. 

When the meal was ended, the captain lit his cigar and 
repaired to the open air to enjoy it. As he was about 
leaving the cabin, he said, with a graceful inclination of 
his tall form to Faith : 

“Madam must consider the Madcap, and all that it 
contains, most humbly at her service. Eh, mate?'" 

“The young lady must know’ that, not being monsters, 
we are most loyally hers to command until we place her 
in better hands. " 

“Oh, yes; I feel that you are all very kind, and will 
take the best care of the poor little waif the sea has 
sent you." 

Valasco made no reply, but bowed again, and dis- 
appeared. 


A IAMB AND A WOLF, 


225 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

A LAMB AND A WOLF. 

Left alone in the cabin with Faith Hilary, the mate of 
the Madcap takes from his belt a small steel dirk, or 
poniard, which he makes a pretense of polishing with a 
scrap of flannel. He next draws a light revolver from his 
breast, and examines all the chambers, which have been 
freshly loaded. 

The girl watches the performance with naive interest. 
She says to him : 

**Why do you carry such ugly-looking weapons on 
board your ship ?” 

“Well, my dear, you see we sometimes fall in with 
pirates when we reach the Spanish coast, and we get in 
the habit of carrying these trinkets. On sea and land 
they’re good things to have handy. ” 

He took up the glittering revolver from where he had 
laid it on the cloth of the table, and, handing it over to 
Faith, said : 

“Just feel of it — how light it is! You could slip it in 
your pocket and never know it was there ; and, as to this 
little beauty,” taking up the dagger, “why, it could hide 
in the folds of your dress ever so easily. Do you know. 


226 


A LAMB AND A WOLF, 


my dear, I always make my wife and the girls keep these 
same weapons about them ?'" 

Why?” asked Faith, now holding out her hand for the 
poniard, with which the old sailor was playing. 

“Well, you see, they live among a lawless set, and a 
woman should always be provided against danger.” 

“But so few women could use a pistol with any effect 
in time of peril.” 

“ Don’t you believe that. A robber within a few inches 
of the hand that's got the pistol ain’t hard to hit. ” 

“So few women have the nerve to kill any one, even in 
self-defense,” said Faith, shuddering at the bare idea. 

“That’s true; but they all have nerve to put a dagger 
in their own hearts rather than fall into the power of evil 
men. ” 

“Oh, of course they have.” 

“And that’s why I make my women keep the dagger, 
so that if the worst comes, they’ve always a way to escape.” 

The mate fixed his silvery blue eye on the girl’s anxious 
face as he spoke. He saw that she took his meaning. He 
went on to add : 

“You see, my dear, I’m of the same sort of stuff that 
made the stern old Roman father put a blade through 
young Virginia’s heart, rather than let the bloody Tarquin 
have his beautiful child. You’ve read that dark old tale?” 

“Yes.” 

The word came soft and low, for the girl was strangely 
awed by the turn that Conway’s talk had taken. 


A LAMB AND A WOLF, 


227 


“Well, I intend to treat you just as I would Floy, if she 
were here to-night instead of you. If she were. I d say, 
‘ Floy, my girl, just you slip this little dirk under your 
bodice in easy reach of your right hand, and never budge 
an inch without it ; and this pistol carry half-cocked, this 
way, in your pocket, or lay it under your pillow of nights, 
so that if we should meet a pirate crew, day or night, 
you re all right ” 

“Do you think we shall meet one?” asked Faith, her 
big eyes all aglow with excitement 

“Oh, no; but it’s always possible, and it’s my way to 
prepare for war in time of peace. I can see it in your 
eyes that you’d be equal to anything at a pinch, and I 
don’t mean you shall lack the means of self-defense if you 
should need them aboard the Madcap. Come, let’s see 
you arm yourself now I” 

His voice was very cheery, but a ring of earnest deter- 
mination sounded under its lighter tones. 

Faith smiled a little nervously, but her look was firm, 
and her white hand steady, as she took the dirk and deftly 
slipped it, sheathed, within the bodice of her dress. 

“There — cleverly done! Now for t'other,” and he 
handed her the revolver, which he held by its delicate 
barrel, saying : “Let’s see, now, if you know what you’ve 
to do when you want to fire. ” 

“Just pull the hammer-lock so?” 

And she cocked the pistol with never a tremor of the 
little pink thumb. 


228 


A LAMB AND A WOLF. 


**/ust so! How I do like a woman with pluck and 
good common sense 1 Now put it back at half-cock.” 

She did it, having carefully watched him perform the 
same manipulation previously. 

*‘So. Put the little barker in your pocket, and, mind 
you, be very careful that the trigger doesn’t catch on some 
of your rigging. It hardly will if you don’t take the case 
off.” 

He had slipped a leathern cover over the weapon, leav- 
ing its handle exposed. 

“Remember, now, that whatever you want or wish 
done, you’re to come to me. When you retire, lock your 
door on the inside, and, whenever it’s my turn to sleep. 
I’ll just pull that sofa against the outside of your door, 
and have one ear and one eye open, as the foxes do ; so 
you needn’t be a bit nervous, but rest like a baby. ” 

“How can I thank you for such kind and thoughtful 
care?” said Faith, with a quiver of her lip, and the grate- 
ful tears in her eyes. 

‘ ‘ By being as light-hearted and happy as you can. I 
must go now ; but you have your books. I see you read 
my favorite ones the most. ” 

With this the old man made her a salute as if she had 
been a commodore, and went above to join his captain. 

Old Graff Conway had noted well the patient, steady 
nerve with which Faith had borne the trying ordeal to 
which she had been subjected, and, although he only 
knew a portion of her trials, and did not know till that 


A LAMB AND A WOLF, 


229 


day that the creole had lied about his relations with the 
girl, he much more than guessed that all the love was on 
Vernois’ side, and that Faith both avoided and mistrusted 
the man who claimed to be her husband. 

But her manner of sustaining herself with such quiet 
courage had won the mate’s profound sympathy and re- 
spect ; and, now that he knew the extent to which she had 
been taxed, his admiration knew no bounds. 

In providing her against a possible danger, as he had 
done, he, of course, had quite another enemy than pirates 
in his mind, but he thought best not to excite her fears by 
a more definite caution than the one he had just given. 

Moreover, he could easily see, from the manner in 
which she had received his vague expressions and pre- 
pared herself against the possible peril, that her own in- 
stinctive bravery would suggest all that was needful if the 
time ever came for her to employ the means of self-pro- 
tection with which he had furnished her. 

For the rest, the old [sea-lion, as he was fond of calling 
himself, intended to save her the trouble of guarding bcth 
her life and her honor against the desperado, whom he 
knew to be capable of sacrificing either, if it suited him, 
and occasion served. 

Two or three days went by, as still the cutter was 
tacking about at the mercy of contrary winds. But, while 
oppressed with impatience to reach the land and her 
friends, the life on shipboard had grown far more tolerable 
to Faith since Julian Vernois no longer composed one of 


230 


A LAMB AND A WOLF. 


its elements. Besides this, the father-like devotion of the 
old sailor went far toward reconciling her to the inevita- 
ble delays. 

The captain, too, had changed sensibly from his surly, 
silent ways, and often joined in social chat, or a game of 
cards with the mate and his fair protegee, and Graff Con- 
way was almost inclined to believe that Valasco had meant 
nothing more than a brutal jest in the ugly words he had 
spoken concerning the girl, or that he had come to the 
decision it were wisest not to meddle with anything that 
Graff Conway chose to protect. 

They knew each other well, these two wild ‘"toilers of 
the sea,’' but no man ever lets any other man see all the 
sides of his character. 

Hard as she tried to be agreeable and civil to the cap- 
tain, Faith could not always disguise the shrinking distrust 
which she felt toward him. cold, indefinable dread of 
his scintillating black eyes, and fierce, cruel smile, that 
had neither mirth nor good nature in it, caused her to 
have as little as possible to say to the Minorcan. He 
seemed unaware of such a feeling on her part, and his 
attentions became less constrained and more generally 
kind in their outward appearance each day. 

One afternoon, about a week after they had left the 
island, Faith sat under an awning on deck, diligently 
stitching on a garment of linen which she was fashioning 
from a supply of stuff so kindly urged upon her accept- 
ance by the mate. This labor of replenishing her ward- 


A LAMB AND A WOLF. 


231 


robe had served to fill up the long days very pleasantly. 
Looking up from her work across the interminable 
waste of sun-bathed waters, she fancied that her gaze^ 
caught the glancing of a sail far out to the westward. 
She strained her eyes eagerly, and the vision seemed to 
become more definite. Her heart gave a great throb of 
hope. 

The mate had suggested the idea that they might fall in 
with a steamship that could take her aboard before the 
little cutter could reach a port. This thought had entirely 
overshadowed his previous hint of a pirate ship. 

“Mr. Conway! Mr. Conway I” called the girl, in wild 
excitement, to the mate, who was at the other end of the 
vessel. 

“Yes, miss. I’m here.” 

“Only come and take a look out this way, for I do be- 
lieve it is a sail that I see, and it must belong to a big 
ship, or I could never see it so far.” 

“Do believe you’re right,” says the mate, peering over 
the little hand she pointed in the direction of a shadowy 
white speck against the golden background of th»»horizon. 
“Wait a bit till I fetch the glass.” 

When he returned he said : 

“Your eyes are younger mine; take a look through 
that, and then let’s hear what you see. ” 

As he spoke he arranged the telescope for her, and pres- 
ently she exclaimed, with delight : 


232 


A LAMB AND A WOLF. 


“Oh, it is I it is a sail, and it's growing bigger, just ever 
so little bigger, I think !" 

The sailor now made his observation, and it sustained 
Faith's decision that there was a sail in sight 

“You're right, by Neptune I” 

And he struck his horny hand upon his knee as he 
said it 

“Mr. Conway, do you think it will come this way?" 

There was a piteous fearfulness in the low, sweet tone, 
and a wistful pain in the lovely, patient eyes that made 
the old man's heart ache. 

He touched her on the shoulder with one of his fingers, 
and, in the manner of one making a very mysterious an- 
nouncement, said ; 

“Well, if it shouldn't come this way, dearie, we can go 
that way, and head her off. I’ll soon tell you what her 
course is.” 

The girl sat almost breathless, her eyes fixed — not upon 
the phantom sail, but on the oracle who watched it 
through the lenses of a powerful sea-glass. After a space 
that seemed very long to poor Faith, the mate said, 
slowly : 

“ She’s running as fast as wind and steam can send her, 
due south. By putting on all our sail, and scudding be- 
fore this westerly wind, we can cut her off at some point 
before midnight. It will set us considerably more out of 
our course, but that's a small matter compared with put- 


A LAMB AND A WOLR 


233 


ting you aboard a steamer, and off this infernal Oh I 

ah ! I mean, this dirty little craft.” 

*‘How good of you to think of me first,” said Faith, 
keeping back her tears with difficulty. 

The prospect of relief from this strange life, and the 
old man’s kindness combined, was almost too much for 
her. 

‘ ‘ Why, child, what else should I think of first, or what 
difference can a few days more or less make to the Mad- 
cap? There, little one, don’t you cry, or old Graff Con- 
way won’t be fit to haul a sail this week. There’s nothing 
takes the stiffening out cf a man’s backbone like a woman’s 
tears. ” 

Never fear; I shall not cry; only I was so glad, and 
you are so good. ” 

“Oh, not a bit of it, my dear. You put it far too 
strong. I’m only not quite such a devil as — as I look. ” 

With this the mate disappeared, and the next minute 
was heard below in consultation with the captain, without 
whose consent he did not care to alter the bearings of the 
cutter. 

The captain lay half dressed upon his berth. Conway 
had wakened him from a sound sleep to explain to him 
the situation, and ended his recital by saying : 

“I suppose we’ll just crowd convas and make for the 
steamer’s route.” 

“Ten thousand devils I no/'* growled the Spaniard, 
♦*Look here, cap'n, you don't mean that?" 


234 A LAMB AND A WOLF. 

“But I do, though! The girl must take her chances 
with the Madcap. WeVe lost time enough with her 
already. ” 

“You know very well it can't hurt us much if we do 
lose a little time. " 

‘ ‘ I know that I'm master here, and that I’ll have no 
more fooling.” 

The captain's eye was savage enough now, and his voice 
had taken the low muttering sound that belonged to his 
most brutal and obstinate words. The mate knew that 
neither argument nor prayer would avail anything. 

It was now a question of submission, or of outright de- 
fiance of the superior authority which, by right of owner- 
ship and rank, belonged to the captain. 

As we have said before, Graff Conway had no fear of 
man or devil, and little enough of God, as his trade and 
general practice only too well attested. Also his temper 
was none of the sweetest, when provoked by such in- 
sulting and uncalled for brutality as Valasco had just ex- 
hibited. 

Besides, he was fully determined to keep his word to 
the girl at all costs, and he did not believe that Valasco 
would come to open conflict if the point was made. He 
had his reasons for this conclusion. Acting upon it, he 
said, while the cold, metallic glitter lit his eye : 

“Yes, you’re master of the ship, I know, but we’ll 

make for the steamer all the same, or ” 

Graff Conway never finished his sentence; for, as he 


“ m DURANCE VILEN 


235 


spoke the first part of it, he coolly turned upon his heel, 
meaning to suit his action to his words, and set the cutter 
on the prescribed course. 

Scarce had he taken one step forward, when a deadly 
blow from the captain’s mighty arm felled him senseless to 
the floor. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

DURANCE VILE.” 

. While fate was dealing thus with poor little Faith 
Hilary, the terrible distaff was not idle in the fortunes of 
those with whom her destiny was being strangely and 
silently interwoven. 

One head — the noblest and proudest of all whose his- 
tory pertains to this romance — lay sorely stricken, and all 
unconscious of the events transpiring around him. 

Lighter than a new-born infant’s breath beat the sick 
pulse through Gordon Warren’s once powerful frame, and, 
looking on him, one might easily mistake the motionless 
repose of his hueless and sharpened features for the last 
long sleep. 

There had been only one change in the state of affairs 
at Lucerne since the night when its master had been con- 
ducted from its portals to the common jail of but 

this was a mysterious one. 


236 DURANCE yiLEN 

It will be remembered that at the moment when 
Mathew Croft was about to make his ignominious exit 
from the hall of Lucerne, a dreadful cry of despair had 
issued from a woman who overlooked the scene from the 
landing above the stairway. 

Immediately afterward she had fallen to the floor, 
crouching there, like a frantic, hunted thing, until the 
cortege had passed out through the vestibule with the 
prisoner, and the door had clanged to behind them. 

The doctor, who remained transfixed with amaze and 
horror with Leda in the library, rushed out at the sound 
of that unearthly shriek, that pierced his brain as if it had 
issued from the depths of a lost soul. He sprang up the 
stairway, and attempted to lift the slender, groveling form ; 
but, with the wild gesture of a maniac, the woman flung 
his hands from her, and, casting the end of her black 
mantle over her head and face, vanished along the dim 
corridor to a room at the end of it, and, slamming its 
door behind her swift steps, the doctor heard her draw to 
the bolts. 

*‘What and who is she?" asked Doctor Wise of Leda, 
as he returned, pale and shivering with an undefinable 
sense of terror. 

'‘Only the housekeeper — a poor, half-mad creature," 
answered Leda, in whose face a vague fear had settled. 

As she spoke she passed out from the library', and w'ent 
to her own room. 

All night long Doctor Wise, with Mrs. Warren and 


m DURANCE VILEN 


237 


Miss Draper, watched beside the bed of his feverish 
patient 

\ The next day it was discovered that the chamber of 
Mrs. Foster, the housekeeper, was empty. Her bed had 
not been slept on, nor her effects in any way confused or 
disturbed. Diligent search and inquiry were at once in- 
stituted, but not a trace of the poor, demented fugitive 
was to be found. 

“ Possibly she has drowned herself in the lake. It was 
her habit to take long, lonely walks after nightfall about 
its shores, and I have often felf a cold, creeping horror at 
seeing her steal in through the gardens long after mid- 
night, with her black garments clinging in damp folds to 
her tall, witch-like form. ” 

This was Miss Draper’s testimony when the news* of 
Mrs. Foster's strange disappearance was discussed in con- 
clave. 

The lake was dragged, but no ghastly shadow of suicide 
was found to have fallen upon its fair, quiet bosom, that 
seemed far fitter for the baths of Nymph and Oread than 
the grim enticement of a pain-driven soul to seek the 
shores of Acheron beneath its limpid wave. 

As for the beautiful mistress of Lucerne, she remained 
invisible within her own apartments. None knew — and 
few seemed to care — how it fared with the cold, haughty 
wife of the accused criminal during those days of mystery 
that elapsed after Mathew Croft’s arrest on the charge of 
attempting to kill by poison a person whose name and 


238 


“/A^ DURANCE VILE. 


condition had not been mentioned in the indictment upon 
which he was arrested. 

Leda had troubled herself too little about winning the 
regard of the community in which she had been born, and 
where her early childhood had passed, to expect much 
sympathy from it in her time of need. All of her youth 
had been spent abroad, and, except occasional and brief 
visits to their beautiful home in Florida, there were no 
local associations with her to make her calamity espoused 
as one of social interest. 

While the eminent legal talent and financial success of 
Mr. Croft had made him a personage of much conse- 
quence among the citizens of , his natural selfishness 

and coldness estranged from him the confidence of his 
associates and equals (superiors he did not acknowledge), 
and attracted the dislike of the lower classes. But talent 
and success atone for a multitude of grave defects, and, 
having made a reputation and accumulated a fortune, 
Mathew Croft seemed sublimely indifferent to the kindly 
sentiments of his race. 

Perhaps a reason for his intense and invariable reserve, 
which often amounted to moroseness, might be found in 
the fact of his having some dark passages in his history, 
the concealment of which an intimacy with others might 
have imperiled. 

There seemed to be less of this austere self-repression 
in his relations with his young partner, whose career he 
had materially helped to form, than with any other person. 


“/iV DURANCE VILE, 


239 


Yet, even in their most intimate professional associa- 
tion, young Wairen was conscious of a thick vail of reti- 
cence that curtained his serious inner life from his and 
every man’s sight. 

It is very probable that the proud and self-contained 
reserve of the young clerk, whom he employed as a mere 
copyist at first, had attracted the notice and approval of 
Mr. Croft so sensibly as to inspire him with the desire to 
train this youth of uncommon ability so that he might 
share with him the arduous duties of a profession that was 
becoming too active and laborious for Croft’s unaided 
efforts. However this might be, it was evident that 
Gordon Warren owed his rapid elevation to a place 

of prominence at the bar of to the countenance 

and patronage of his sometime preceptor, afterward his 
partner. 

It seemed a little unfortunate for Mathew Croft that 
now, in his time of sorest need, the only living creature 
whom he had attached to his interests by material and ap- 
parently unselfish services, should be jying locked in the 
very jaws of death and utterly unconscious of his benefac- 
tor’s state. Besides his claim upon the personal service 
of the young lawyer, Croft knew as well as any one that, 
although so young in his career, there was no other man 
of his acquaintance to whose oratorical ability he could 
sooner confide his case than the towering eloquence of 
the young attorney, whose impassioned appeals and 
closely-knit arguments had overthrown many of the oldest 


240 


«7A^ DURANCE VILEN 


and best-trained gladiators in the professional arena of the 
State. 

In his distress Croft forgot or ignored the mortifying 
revelation which had been made to him concerning Leda’s 
infatuation for Warren. And his own conception of the 
man's character, strengfhened by all he had observed in 
his deportment toward the women of his family, con- 
vinced him that .Leda had only spoken the simple truth 
when she had exonerated Warren from any complicity in 
her disgraceful efforts to entrap his honor. 

On the day succeeding the night of his arrest, Mathew 
Croft sat before the narrow casement of his cell in the jail. 
He had just taken some coffee from the coarse meal that 
had been provided for his breakfast, and had desired the 
jailer to bring him writing materials, and by no means to 
admit any visitor whomsoever to his presence without his 
consent. 

The deputy of the prison had placed paper, pen, and 
ink upon a small table of rude boards near the prisoner’s 
chair, and retired with the untasted breakfast, leaving Mr. 
Croft to his meditations on the wisest coarse open to him 
under the existing circumstances. 

Fortunately his legal knowledge, and the astute percep- 
tiveness that had been one of his chief auxiliaries to the 
reputation he had won, rendered his situation less appall- 
ing to him than if ignorance of its possibilities had been 
^dded to the mystery in which Rachel’s cautious and half- 
vild revelations had left him» 


DURANCE VILEN 


241 


With that instinct of secrecy that animates a panther in 
its advances on its prey, Rachel had purposely concealed 
from Croft the extent and the nature of the evidences of 
his crime which she claimed to have in her possession. 
She had only deduced such testimony as convinced him 
that she was in reality aware of his nefarious deed, and the 
exact manner of its perpetration, but carefully withheld 
from him the channel through which she had arrived at 
the knowledge. 

Whether her witnesses were living beings, or only those 
mute but sometimes more awful accusers that rise up like 
ghostly fiends, with glittering masks upon their silent 
faces, to confront the criminal, and which are known as 
circumstantial evidence, he could not even conjecture*. 

During that private interview which followed the sudden 
apparition and horrid revelation by which the outraged 
and presumably dead wife set the living wife forever asun- 
der from the man who had foully wronged them both, 
Rachel had evidently convinced Croft that his wisest, 
safest, and simplest course was to accept her terms without 
demur. 

Some occult power of inspiration seemed to have en- 
tered the mind of this dull-brained, commonplace wo- 
man, who had for years been the down-trodden slave 
of one all-absorbing passion. 

The moment that silent tyranny of a great, unreason- 
ing love was removed from her faculties, they burned up 
Jike smoldered and Ut all the horizon of her life 


242 


“Zy DURANCE VILEN 


as with a lurid glare that made all things glow before her 
with magical distinctness. 

In her simple intuitiveness, she had managed to con- 
found and baffle the skill, the experience, the cunning, 
and the malice of this powerful intelligence. 

And Mathew Croft now sat lost in a mazy tissue of 
vague and vain conjectures as to how much power this 
woman had to harm him. 

The most appalling of all the results which might 
accrue out of the whole affair was the disgrace and the 
hideousness of standing confessed before the world he had 
duped for so long a time as a fraud and a villain of the 
deepest dye. The one acutely sensitive spot in this man's 
hard nature was his craving after popular applause. 

It was this that had stimulated his vanity when he 
adopted in his youth and extreme poverty the career of 
itinerant preacher. 

When he held a congregation of humble devotees pal- 
pitating in the skill of his torrid elocution, he forgot the 
hardships and poverty of his adopted calling, and enjoyed 
moments of exquisite delight. 

The instant that chance favored him with the opportu- 
nity to escape to higher and wider fields through the 
acquisition of Rachel’s fortune, he seized it eagerly, and 
used it, as we have seen, unscrupulously. 

At no time had he ever been addicted to the mere 
physical pleasures — his passions were more of the mind 
than the body. For women he never e^red, ^lid he soon 


AN UNJUST STEWARD. 


243 


found it an intolerable bore and a most exquisite vexation 
to be burdened with the idolatrous devotion of an ugly, 
unattractive, and passionate woman, entitled to his con- 
stant society and tender consideration. 

He was not slow in deciding that at every hazard he 
must rid himself of this incubus, if he was to realize any 
satisfaction from her fortune. 

We have seen with what success he achieved this fell 
purpose. 


CHAPTER XXyi. 

AN UNJUST STEWARD. 

Mathew Croft had been employed by Leda's father to 
conduct several important cases of litigation, and such 
confidence had the weak and credulous Colonel Morgan 
reposed in the ability and probity of the then rising 
lawyer, that he had not only caused Mr. Croft to draw 
his will, but, at his death, appointed the attorney executor 
of the document and supervisor in general over his estates 
and the interests of his wife and young daughter, who was 
at that time a mere school-girl. 

Mrs. Morgan was one of those dependent and fragile 
natures that gladly repose on the first available support; 
and while she knew very little of Mathew Croft, and cared 


244 


AN UNJUST STEWARD. 


less, when her widowhood rendered it necessary to rely 
upon the knowledge and judgment of some man in busi- 
ness matters, she readily accepted the appointed guardian 
of her interests, and never for one moment questioned 
his integrity or competency. 

Remaining abroad with her daughter for years after her 
husband’s death, and subsequently residing in one of the 
Northern States, of which she was a native, Mrs. Morgan 
left the conduct of her affairs so entirely to Mr. Croft, 
that she was not even aware of the extent of her income, 
or the extravagance of her expenditures, until a very little 
while before her death. 

Although the first years of her married life had been 
happily spent in Florida, Mrs. Morgan had never been 
able to assimilate her tastes and feelings with the com- 
munity of which her husband was a conspicuous member. 

Perhaps it was even more difficult then than now for 
members of the opposite factions, and natives of the dif- 
ferent sections of the Union, to harmonize their views of 
life and social ethics. 

Considering the unyielding prejudice of the one section, 
and the lack of adaptability in the other, it was not then, 
and is not now, remarkable that an intangible barrier of 
reserve exists, more obstinate and real than can be found 
between peoples of a separate and distinct nationality. 

Women are even more invincible in political and social 
differences than men. It therefore suited Mrs. Morgan 
far better to come occasionally among her husband’s rela- 


AN- UNJUST STEWARD. 


ns 

lives and friends as a visitor, than to combat the icy 
courtesies and ill-concealed mistrust with which she felt 
she must contend if she made her permanent home in 
the South; and, being a gentleman of elegant leisure, 
Colonel Morgan was content to spend the long summers 
in travel or at a popular resort, flying southward with the 
swallows at the season when the orange groves and myrtle 
hedges are at their most attractive stage, and inspiring 
dreams of the Oriental gardens. 

’ A few months previous to the commencement of this 
story, Mrs. Morgan had made an unusually heavy draft 
upon the revenues of her Southern estates for the purpose 
of refitting her elegant Northern home. To her great 
astonishment, she was informed by her lawyer that it 
could not be honored, and that, through her reckless 
extravagance, her property was entirely bankrupt. 

Mrs. Morgan's health, already very miserable, utterly 
broke under the shock of this cruel news ; but, without 
making it known to her daughter, whom she blindly 
adored, she decided to make a visit to Florida for the 
purpose of investigating her affairs. 

The day after her arrival, Mr. Croft received a note 
requesting him to call at Lucerne. He saw no one but 
Mrs. Morgan, and was appalled to behold her shattered 
condition of health. She taxed him with singular un- 
kindness in not sooner apprising her of her declining 
fortunes. 

He replied : 


246 


AJV UNJUST STEWARD.. 


Madam, you forget that I repeatedly admonished you 
of your extravagance in my letters.” 

“Yes; but not once did you curtail my receipts of 
money. ” 

“On the contrary, madam, as was my duty and pleasure, 
I frequently responded to your demands by straining my 
own credit. In the very last instance, the remittance you 
received was from my private purse.” 

“Why, in Heaven’s name, did you not speak plainly, 
and say that I was being ruined?' 

“My dear Mrs. Morgan, it seemed to me that, in 
dealing with a lady of culture and intellect, I said enough, 
and more than enough ; and when I found there was no 
retrenchment of your expenses, I naturally concluded that 
you had in reserve resources of which I was ignorant, and 
of which I had no right to inquire.” 

“Oh, sir, I cannot help but feel that you have done 
me and my child a very cruel injustice by this incompre- 
hensible delicacy.'' 

There was a bitter intonation on the last word that 
sounded very like sarcasm from the refined lips of the 
frail invalid. 

“If so, I have erred through consideration for your 
feelings, and respect for my dead friend’s memory. ” 

“Would it not have been kinder to that friend had 
you used less agreeable measures to protect his widow 
and orphan against the poverty that seems now our 
portion ?” 


AN UNJUST STEWARD. 


247 


'‘Possibly so, madam ; but I acted for the best." 

"What is done is done.'’ said Mrs. Morgan, with cold 
politeness, adding: "You will oblige me by making out 
a full and complete statement of all my affairs since you 
have had control of them. I shall employ Mr. Craig to 
investigate and close up my business immediately." 

The clear, soft eye of Mrs. Morgan rested full on Croft’s 
face during the last remarks. She thought she detected a 
startled expression under the practiced reticence of his 
countenance ; but he merely bowed, and replied : 

"As you please, madam." 

He prepared to withdraw, but paused a moment at the 
door to say : 

" Perhaps you have overlooked the fact that Mr. Craig 
was one of your husband’s bitter enemies and political 
opponents, and that the transferring of the management 
of an insolvent estate to his, or any other hands, becomes 
a question of fees and costs, which I doubt if you are 
prepared to discharge. " 

With this Parthian shaft, Croft bowed low, and, wearing 
an air of injured innocence and abused friendship, he 
went away. 

Although so cool in his treatment of Mrs. Morgan’s 
threat to employ Mr. Craig to investigate his management 
of her affairs, it was the Spartan nerve in receiving a 
deadly stab. 

Elmore Craig was the natural enemy — to use the idea 
in a professional sense — of Mathew Croft. This gentle- 


^48 _ AN UNJUST STEWARD. 

man had ranked first in point of talent and seniority at 
the bar of the State when Croft began the practice of 

law in . The indefatigable zeal, energy, tact, and 

superior abilities of the interloper did much to retrench 
both the practice and the popularity of Mr. Craig ; besides 
this, Croft had failed to render the elder man that defer- 
ence which his age and position entitled him to receive 
from the junior members of the bar. A silent but bitter 
animosity had subsisted between these two from the first, 
and time had not softened it. 

To have his management of Mrs. Morgan^s property 
looked into and called to account by this man, would 
have been an insufferable thought to Croft, even had there 
been nothing to conceal from the public eye. 

But, counting on the ignorance of business and con- 
fiding disposition of his fair client, Croft had so directed 
events as to put the estates of the late Colonel Morgan in 
such a condition that, with an appearance of great liber- 
ality and forbearance on his part, they must, in the end, 
pass into his possession, as the just equivalent of repeated 
advances of money made on crops that were never raised. 
It would be tedious to explain the means by which all 
this had been accomplished. He had taken care that his 
accounts should wear a correct aspect when examined by 
the unprofessional eye of the widow, and he had never 
calculated on any investigation of them. 

On his return from the interview with Mrs. Morgan, he 
revolved the situation most carefully in his inventive brain, 


AN UNJUST STEWARD. 


249 


and, long ere he reached his office, he had decided on his 
measures to prevent any third party from meddling with 
the Lucerne property. At an early hour of the following 
day he called, uninvited, at the villa. 

Mrs. Morgan received him with great coldness. Croft, 
on the other hand, wore an air of the most profound 
sympathy and regard, touched with tender deference. 

He opened the conversation thus : 

^‘Dear madam, I can well comprehend how, in the 
pain and mortification you must have suffered under the 
announcement of your business trouble, you should have 
done me the injustice which your words betrayed in our 
conference yesterday. I do not complain of it; on the 
contrary, I excuse and understand it. I feel, too, that I 
may deserve your reproaches in part. It would surely 
have been best had I nerved myself long ago to the dis- 
agreeable duty, which, at last, became inevitable, instead 
of supplying from my own means the large sums which, 
of course, could not be always forthcoming to meet the 
improvident demands which you, in your ignorance of 
affairs, made upon your property. ” 

Here Mrs. Morgan fixed a look of proud resentment 
upon him, as she said : 

‘^It is the second time you have reminded me of your 
beneficent charity^ Mr. Croft; but I imagine you know 
me better than to suppose I will not repay you every 
farthing you advanced, if it requires the last acre of land, 
and even the last trinket I possess. " 


AN UNJUST STEWARD, 


250 

‘^Pardon me, my friend, if I hurt your pride by recur- 
ring to so small a service in comparison to the magnitude 
of my desire to serve you. It is necessary, in order to 
explain other things, that I should have dwelt for a 
moment upon that unimportant fact ” 

“Go on, sir, if you please.” 

“There are circumstances of great delicacy connected 
with the duties imposed on me by your husband’s will, 
that made me shrink from having any third party in any 
way concerned with his property. I deemed it better to 
constitute myself the factor in this business, and, instead 
of procuring advances of money from other sources, to 
assume the risks in my own person of taking the lands, 
if need be, in exchange for the funds.” 

“I think I can understand that part of it,” said the 
lady, with ever so light a curl of her delicate lips; “but 
what are the * circumstances of great delicacy,’ which 
render it necessary that no 4hird party’ must be * con- 
cerned in the property ?’ ” 

Croft cast his eyes to the ground, and seemed to suffer 
the keenest embarrassment. At length he said, with 
reluctance : 

“Dear Mrs. Morgan, my loyalty to the dead demands 
my silence, even at the expense of your displeasure. ” 

A white indignation overspread the already pale cheek 
of the frail creature, and she exclaimed, with much heat : 

“Mr. Croft, dare you insinuate that my husband con- 
fided to you any trust that you cannot mention to m€ 


AN UNJUST STEWARD. 


251 


''Alas! yes, madam; it is even so.” 

"I would not believe it though an angel re-echoed 
your words. ” 

"I do not blame you for saying so; on the contraiy, I 
honor you the more. ” 

Utterly exasperated by this show of compassionate sym- 
pathy, Mrs. Morgan rose to her feet, trembling like a leaf 
in a tempest. 

Her lips were bloodless and her voice shaken, as she 
said : 

“I shall prove that you have basely slandered' the 
memory of the dead. I shall have an investigation made 
of every clause in his will, every circumstance of his life, 
that I may die with the satisfaction of having established 
the falseness of your assertion. ” 

First read this paper, which is written and signed by 
your husband, sealed with his own hand, with his own 
signet ring, and left in the package containing his will. 
You observe it is addressed to me, and marked 'con- 
fidential. ' ” 

Her hand shook so violently that she could scarcely 
hold the paper. It was all as he had said. 

She opened and was about to read it, when Croft rose 
and interposed his hand between her eyes and the page 
of closely-written paper, bearing the unmistakable chir- 
ography — a delicate, irregular handwriting — of Lambert 
Morgan. 

He said, as he did this ; 


252 AN UNJUS'i STEWARD. 

**Dear Mrs. Morgan, for your own and your child's 
sake, do not read that paper. I was wrong to give it to 
you — wrong even to speak of it. Yet I felt bound to stay 
your mad purpose of setting the curious scrutiny of a 
stranger at work among documents that must surely lead 
up to this one. For Heaven's sake, give me back the 
paper, and rest content with my assertion that I have acted 
with the utmost discretion for your best interests.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, my God 1 Why — why did you say aught to cloud 
my faith in him? It is a cruel crime; it is worse than if 
you had stabbed me to the heart !” 

“It was the last and only resource to protect his 
memory from shame. Heaven knows I did not desire to 
give you this anguish. ” 

“Ah, I see — I see it all nowl It was behind this 
fortress of defense that you entrenched yourself to ruin 
me.” 

“Good Heaven, madam, do you rave?” 

* ' Mathew Croft, the world names you a hard, unscru- 
pulous, self-seeking man. I know little enough about 
either the theory or the practice of your calling; but 
instinctively I felt, from the moment of reading your last 
letter to me, that I had become the victim of that cupidity 
with which the world charges you ; and every word, tone, 
and look of yours during our personal interviews has only 
fixed this feeling in my heart. It shall be as you say. 
I will not profane the sacred ashes of the man I loved 
by learning what he chose to conceal from me. I shall 


AN UNJUST STEWARD.. 


^53 


meet him soon. God deal with you according to your 
manner of fulfilling the trust reposed in your hands by 
the dead !” 

As she concluded this solemn sentence, she fell into 
one of those long, trance-like swoons, similar to the one 
that succeeded to her recital of these facts to Gordon 
Warren. 

From that time her strength had been rapidly waning 
until he saw her. 

She had tacitly acquiesced in all that Croft required 
of her in the settlement of her ruined estate, and her 
signature to the document which led to Warren's acquaint- 
ance with Lucerne and its inmates was the last of tke 
transactions to which she had subscribed her name. 

The fact that Gordon Warren had demanded of Croft a 
suspension of the sale of Lucerne until his return from 
the West, was quite sufficient to convince Croft that Mrs. 
Morgan had said something to arouse the young man's 
suspicions with regard to the professional administration 
of Lambert Morgan's will. 

Mr. Croft decided to put a final quietus on his partner's 
scruples by marrying the girl Leda. 

It was an alternative that was by no means attractive to 
the cold, mercenary heart of the lawyer; but, once em- 
barked in the matrimonial adventure with so beautiful 
and seductive a woman as Leda, Croft was surprised into 
a passion for the girl, the ardor of which surpassed all his 
self-knowledge. 


254 


A MIDNIGHT VISITANT. 


Of the subsequent course of events the reader is already 
aware. 

It was of all these things together, and a thousand 
other links in the long chain of his life’s vicissitudes, that 
Mathew Croft sat brooding before the grated window of 
his prison-cell. 

Who knows but that, above all other reminiscences of 
this checkered retrospection, the solemn adjuration of the 
woman whose wifely faith he had so terribly blighted filled 
his ear and brain to the exclusion of all hope : 

“God deal with you according to your manner of ful- 
filling the trust reposed in your hands by the dead !” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

A MIDNIGHT VISITANT. 

The prisoner turned at length from his depressing re- 
flections, and addressed himself to the task of writing two 
letters. One of these was to a lawyer of some ability re- 
siding in the city ; the other was directed to a distinguished 
legal personage in one of the adjoining States. 

These letters were duly dispatched, and in the afternoon 

Mr. Fields, one of his compeers at the bar of , called 

in response to the former of these epistles. Informing 
himself of Mr. Fields' willingness to be associated with 


A MIDNIGHT VISITANT 255 

the celebrated Mr. Pearson, of Alabama, Croft proceeded 
to put his counsel in possession of the case, assuming that 
it was “a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing," but, 
at the same time, admitting that there might be danger in 
the woman claiming to be his former wife, provided she 
had been clever enough to supply herself with well-authen- 
ticated testimony, shrewdly interwoven with circumstantial 
evidence. 

Croft felt it would be safest to proceed with the utmost 
caution, reserving any confessions for the dernier resort. 
He advised Mr. Fields to go at once to Lucerne and con- 
fer with the two women, Mrs. Foster and Miss Draper, 
concerning the whereabouts of their employer, “Rachel 
Croft, as she persists in calling herself. " 

“But, my dear sir, it seems to me that we encounter a 
very criminating fact at the outset — namely, your acquies- 
cence in the charge preferred against you by this mad 
woman, by assuming the charge of her daughter, and 
placing her household under the supervision of her two 
spies. " 

“We can deal with that easily enough, Mr. Fields. 
There is nothing remarkable in a man of delicate sensi- 
bilities submitting to the most dreadful impositions rather 
than encounter the disgusting exposure of his private 
affairs in a public prosecution for a crime of which he is 
innocent. When you reflect that I was then but a week 
married to a beautiful and notable woman of high socia 
connections, whose whole future must have been clouded 


256 


A MIDNIGHT VISITANT, 


by such a miserable farce as this persecution is like to 
prove, you cannot wonder that I accepted any means of 
escape from it. ” 

‘ ‘ But your wife, was she not aware of the charge made 
against you by this crazy woman — and must not her tacit 
acceptance of the situation seem utterly incomprehensible 
to the community?’' 

Croft had his answer ready. Without a shade’s change 
of expression upon his evil countenance, he said : 

“But, of course, Mrs. Croft did not know. That she 
should remain in ignorance of the black charge was in- 
cluded in my agreement with the woman Rachel.” 

“ How was the advent of the girl, and the two addi- 
tional members of your household, explained to her satis- 
faction ?” 

‘ ‘ Oh, easily enough ; my young ward confided to me 
by the letter of an old friend, written on his death-bed. 
As to the two other women, they simply answered adver- 
tisements made for governess and housekeeper. Nothing 
more simple.” 

The face of the advocate wore a perplexed expression, 
and he said nothing for some time. When he did speak, 
there was an embarrassment in his manner. 

“It is needless for me to admonish Mr. Croft, of 
the wisdom of giving a candid and unreserved statement 
of your case in the beginning. As a lawyer of great ex- 
perience, you know perfectly well how many complica- 
tions may arise from the counsel’s ignorance of facisT 


A MIDNIGHT VISITANT. 257 

“You are simply to proceed under my instructions, sir, 
leaving consequences to me." 

The lawyer rose and prepared to take leave, as there 
seemed no further discussion of the case required at 
present. 

He had already received his client's directions concern- 
ing certain preliminaries. 

Mr. Croft said : 

“Will you do me the kindness to call immediately upon 
Mrs. Croft; and place in her own hands this letter?" 

“Certainly. Do you expect me to bring you a reply?" 

“Probably she will desire you to do so. You will, at 
all events, call again on your return, and report the results 
of your visit?" 

“With pleasure. Is there no other way in which I can 
serve you, sir ?" 

“No ether, I think." 

The advocate withdrew, and again Mathew Croft was 
left to his solitude. 

He had taken one false step already, by denying Leda's 
knowledge of Rachel's visit to him. 

He counted on Warren's silence — if, indeed, the poor 
fellow should be alive at the time — about having seen the 
strange woman in company with Leda and himself; but, 
even should this fact come out in the testimony, there was 
still Leda's denial against Rachel's assertion of a mutual 
understanding, for nothing had transpired in presence of 
Warren. 


258 A MIDNIGHT VISITANT. 

In his letter to Leda, Croft had enjoined upon her an 
absolute refusal to give any testimony whatever until com- 
pelled by the law to do so upon the witness-stand in open 
court, and, above all, to adhere to her denial of any ac- 
quaintance with Rachel’s accusations, and his subsequent 
compact with her. 

He counted upon Leda’s compliance, not because of 
her interest in his acquittal so much as her own desire to 
shield herself from the ignominy of having been a party to 
the horrid compact that must forever disgrace and ostra- 
cize from society the woman who could lend herself to 
such baseness. 

His chief anxiety at present was to learn where Rachel 
had concealed herself, and how she intended to proceed 
in the prosecution. 

Not once did his thoughts turn with pity or compunc- 
tion to the anguish of the bereaved mother, whose soul 
must be one seething abyss of torture for the unhappy 
fate of her child — the one thing that bound her wretched 
life to the world. 

Now that the business of his interview with his lawyer 
was over, Croft’s ideas were in some degree released from 
the painful concentration with which he had been dwell- 
ing on his condition, and his thoughts wandered to exter- 
nal objects. 

As he cast his eyes round the gloomy little cell, noting 
its dingy walls, where great black spiders hung in their 
webs, furnishing a significant topic of meditation, his 


A MIDNIGHT VISITANT, 259 

glance encountered a line written in charcoal upon the 
discolored plastering. 

It was only a man's name, with the day of the month 
and date of year annexed. 

“Joel Bradwell, Friday, March loth, 18 — . Amen!” 

A mortal shuddering crept through the man’s whole 
body as his gaze Sstened on this scrawled sentence on the 
prison wall. 

He fancied he experienced a sensation like unto the 
dread of the Eastern monarch when he looked upon the 
phantom writing traced upon his banquet hall. 

Was this commonplace line, this conjunction of or- 
dinary words, a fell prognostic of his fate, sure as the mys- 
tical ‘ ‘ Mene tekel, ” before which Belshazzar trembled 

Mathew Croft was recalling a scene full of tragic horror, 
in which the man, Joel Bradwell, a brutal murderer, had 
been led from the gates of this same jail — and he now be- 
lieved from this very cell — to meet his just doom upon the 
gallows before the howling, execrating masses of an out- 
raged populace. 

The train of gloomy reflections engendered by this dis- 
covery of the celebrated criminal’s name traced over his 
head was interrupted by the return of Mr. Fields. 

“Have you a letter for me, sir?” asked Croft, nerv- 
ously; for he indulged the hope that in his hour of 
calamity Leda’s cold heart might have been touched to 
sympathy. 


a6o A MIDNIGHT VISITANT. 

“No, sir. Mrs. Croft simply asked me to say that she 
comprehended all that you had written. 

Croft shut his tusk-like upper teeth hard down upon 
his ashen lip — his mortification was profound. Mr. Fields 
added : 

“The housekeeper, Mrs. Foster, has mysteriously dis- 
appeared. Careful and diligent searcl#has been made 
after her without the smallest success. Not a trace can be 
found. It is supposed that her disordered brain may have 
suffered a fatal shock under the excitement of your arrest, 
which she is said to have witnessed with remarkable dem- 
onstrations of horror, and that she fled from the house 
during the night, and must have drowned herself. The 
lake has been dragged to no purpose, but the river is quite 
near enough at hand for a maniac to have reached its 
swift, strong current.” 

“And Miss Draper?” 

“Says she is in perfect ignorance of the present locality 
of^the woman Rachel’s residence; that the last letter an- 
nouncing her departure for Europe was received only a 
few days after Miss Draper’s arrival in your family, and 
that not a word indicating her future address had been 
given.” 

“Mrs. Foster must have possessed the information we 
require. ” 

“Possibly; but it has disappeared with herself We 
must grope in the dark as best we can, waiting for the de- 
velopments on the other side.” 


MORAL LEPROSY. 


261 


Mr. Fields took his leave again, and repaired to his law 
office, where he frequently worked until late into the 
night. At eleven o’clock, when he was about to put out 
his lamp upon the baize-covered table of the office, there 
sounded a light, uncertain rap on the street door. 

It was a strange hour for a visitor or client to call. ' 
Opening the door with some curiosity, he was met at the 
threshold by the tall, slender figure of a woman, robed 
and closely vailed in black. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

MORAL LEPROSY. 

At an early hour on the morning that succeeded to the 
events of the last chapter, the prisoner, Mathew Croft, was 
disturbed in his late slumbers to receive a sealed letter 
from Mr. Fields. 

With some eagerness, Mr. Croft opened the envelope, 
hoping to find some item of intelligence bearing on his 
affairs. What he did find was as follows : 

“May 14th, 18—. 

“Sir; — I t has become my painful duty to decline further connec- 
tion with your case. This determination is unalterable. It is need- 
less for me to add that the confidences which transpired during our 
interviews of yesterday are protected by the sacred seal of our pro- 
fession, and that they shall be guarded as my own honor. 

“I remain, John D. Fields. 

“To Mathew Croft, Esq.” 


262 


MORAL LEPROSY. 


This was all — not a word of sympathy, not a syllable of 
regret or explanation — simply this abrupt withdrawal from 
his service. 

Mr. Croft had chosen this man from among the several 
prominent lawyers with whom he had been associated in 
practice, because of his sound sense and shrewd powers of 
observation, and because his indigent circumstances would 
be a stimulus added to professional pride in a case where 
the fee was made contingent, as he had purposely made 
that which he proposed as a recompense for successful 
effort in his cause. The eloquence and legal learning of 
the associated counsel, Mr. Pearson, were to surmount 
the more laborious preparations of the details of the case. 
Mr. Croft relied more upon himself than either or both of 
them. Of the two men. Fields, who was on the spot, 
and upon whom the prisoner relied for collecting informa- 
tion, and watching the opposing counsel, was the more 
important, and it was not without great annoyance that 
Croft digested the contents of the note. 

"‘Shall you send a reply, sir.?” asked the deputy officer 
of the jail, whose duty it was to attend on the prisoner 
and comply with all reasonable and lawful demands. 

“No.” 

The officer withdrew ; and, after casting about for the 
best plan to pursue in this unlooked-for and unaccount- 
able emergency, Croft decided to remain passive for the 
present, awaiting the arrival of Mr. Pearson. 

Meanwhile, a public announcement of his arrest, and a 


MORAL LEPROSY. 


263 


general statement of the crime with which he was charged, 
appeared in the daily papers, but by whose authority was 
not known beyond the sanctum of the editors. Dispas- 
sionately as the paragraphs were written, there seemed to 
lurk so cold-blooded and horrible a significance in every 
line of the brief but tragic narrative, that it fell upon the 
community like the shock of some newly-perpetrated out- 
rage. 

The secret mistrust which many had harbored against 
the accused, and the open enmity of others, now broke 
out into loud execrations. Not one of all who heard or 
read the strange account of Rachel Croft's mournful fate, 
proposed interment, and subsequent resuscitation, and the 
dreary history of her poor life up to the moment of her 
apparition before her husband and his other wi/e^ could 
take with him or her from the narrative one sentiment of 
pity for the selfish villain w^ho thus had repaid her wild 
worship, and doomed her to years of pain more dreadful 
than the fate he had designed for her. 

Thus was the public sentiment made to prejudge the 
criminal, and all compassion alienated from the prisoner. 

Of the nature and form of the evidence to be brought 
forward in the trial there was, of course, no mention made 
in the publication of the facts therein stated. 

At the close of it appeared this paragraph : 

“It is affirmed that Messrs. Pearson, of Alabama, and 
Fields, of this city, are to appear for the accused. Our 
venerable fellow-citizen, the Nestor of our Bar, Mr. El- 


264 


MORAL LEPROSY, 


more Craig, has been employed as assistant counsel for the 
State.” 

This significant issue from the local press was submitted 
to Mr. Crofts perusal twenty-four hours after his arrest, 
and previous to the withdrawal of Mr. Fields from his 
case. 

By the end of the week Mr. Croft received a message 
from Mr. Pearson to say that he had just arrived at the 
hotel at a late hour, and much worn with travel, but 
would call upon his client at ten o’clock the following 
day. 

It may be imagined that the prisoner awaited the hour 
in no placid frame of mind. 

The solitude, confinement, and utter ignorance of all 
that might have transpired in the interval since his arrest, 
had shaken the iron nerve of this man, whose moral metal 
had been so highly tempered during the varied experiences 
of his life. His hard, muscular face, over which he or- 
dinarily held such supreme control, had taken an expres- 
sion of intense repression. Its strong lines had grown 
rigid, lest in some unguarded moment they might betray 
the secret emotions of the dark soul which they masked. 

s> 

Mr. Croft had made his toilet with unusual care and 
elegance to receive the great lawyer. 

Despite his repulsiveness of countenance, there was an 
air of distinction about this man that at once evidenced a 
strain of patrician blood running in the darker currents. 
His points, too, denoted purity of race. Small and 


MORAL LEPROSY, 


265 


shapely feet, beautiful and delicately kept hands, that 
were white as a girl's, and a proud calm of manner when 
he wished. 

Each and all of his personal advantages were displayed 
to the best effect on the present occasion, and he sat 
paring his pointed nails with a slender pen-knife as the 
clock near by chimed the hour of ten. 

Half an hour went by, and Mr. Croft was growing white 
and nervous. Still fifteen minutes more, and he rose and 
paced the narrow space fretfully. Eleven o'clock struck, 
and shortly after steps approached his cell. 

This time it was the jailer proper who entered, and pre- 
sented, not the expected personage, but a small sealed en- 
velope. Mr. Croft read the inclosure : 

“May 15 th. 

“Mathew Croft, Esq.: — Permit me to express my regret at the 
disappointment which this note will doubtless add to your already 
disagreeable position, but I find myself obliged to relinquish the idea 
of defending your case. 

“Yours, etc. James E. Pearson.” 

Without looking up from the letter, Mr. Croft made a 
sign to the jailer to depart, saying, quietly : 

“No answer." 

What did it all mean? Was the brand of Cain upon 
him, so that every man's hand was against him ? Had the 
awfulness of the crime with which he was charged ren- 
dered his very name an abomination, and so polluted the 
atmosphere about him that no living creature, save the 
functionaries whose business it was, came nigh his dismal 
dungeon ? 


266 


THE WOLF AND HIS PREY. 


Verily, it seemed as if a solemn ban of excommunica- 
tion from the sympathies, as from the society, of his kind 
had been pronounced against him before his time. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE WOLF AND HIS PREY. 

There was an invisible witness to the discussion between 
the captain and the mate of the Madcap, which ended in 
the fierce Minorcan’s springing to his feet at the moment 
when his comrade turned to leave the state-room, and 
sending his ponderous, brawny arm out with a momentum 
that would have laid a stouter man than the old sailor 
prone and senseless. 

Hearing high words between the two officers of the 
vessel, the Malay had set the door of his kitchen slightly 
ajar, in order to observe the better what passed between 
them. 

Although, as has already been stated, the Oriental 
spoke no tongue save his own, that did not signify that he 
understood no other, nor that, in a pinch, he was unable 
to convey his ideas very intelligibly by means of certain 
words and fragmentary sentences that he had collected in a 
secret repertoire of his sagacious and cunning brain against 
the time of need. It suited him to have Captain Valasco 


THE WOLF AND HIS PREY. 267 

believe that with himself alone he (the Malay) was capable 
of any verbal communication. 

Standing at the crevice in the door-way, the cook 
watched with a cat-like vision the scene that was transpir- 
ing just a few feet from his post of observation. He com- 
prehended sufficient of what was said to learn the whole 
gist of the matter ; and when he saw the agile leap of the 
young sailor, followed by the fall of the mate, he drew his 
conclusions pretty correctly as to the real nature of the 
captain’s motives in rendering the mate incapable of fur- 
ther opposition to his designs. 

Valasco bent a moment over the prostrate form of his 
comrade. He had directed his blow with skillful accu- 
racy, so as to benumb the consciousness without attacking 
the life of his victim. He felt very sure that before half 
an hour the tough old seaman would be recovered from 
his present condition of insensibility, and he proceeded at 
once to avail himself of it to put the obstinate old man 
where he would be powerless to interfere with his actions 
for as long a time as he chose to be rid of him. 

To bind fast the arms of Graff Conway was only a mo- 
ment’s work for the powerful captain, who then stepped to 
the door of the kitchen, and with a sign summoned the 
Malay. 

Together they bore the mate down to the ship’s locker, 
where he was securely fastened up. Valasco explained to 
the cook that it was the just penalty of insubordination 
on the part of the mate, and that he would be released in 


268 


THE WOLF AND HIS PREY. 


due season. The Malay affected perfect satisfaction with 
the arrangement, and returned to his own post. The 
huge key that secured the mate’s prison was in the cap- 
tain’s pocket. 

After retiring to his state-room, and refreshing his toilet 
a little, the captain went up on deck. There sat Faith 
Hilary, still intent on watching the distant sails through 
the sea-glass. 

She heard a man’s step approaching her, but concluded 
it was the mate returning, and, without shifting her pos- 
ture or turning her head, she said : 

**Have you altered her course, Mr. Conway?” 

‘‘The vessel’s all right, but it is not Mr. Conway,” 
answered the deep, slow tones of the captain. 

“Ahl excuse me, sir; I thought Mr. Conway had 
come back to tell me about setting the vessel on the right 
track to overtake the steamer yonder. ” 

The girl’s voice had changed suddenly from its free and 
confidential tone to one of constrained courtesy, and she 
smiled nervously as she looked up to the swart, sinister 
face of Valasco, who now stood beside her. One of his 
hands was cast behind him, the other thrust into the 
leathern belt that confined his waist, and a smile which he 
intended should inspire confidence, but which was full of 
treachery, played over the pale-red lips. He said : 

“Mr. Conway has been taken suddenly ill, but not un- 
til he had explained to me about overtaking the steam- 
ship. I’ll manage all that as well as he could.” 


THE WOLF AND HIS PREY. 


269 


“You say he is ill?'' cried Faith, in alarm, and with a 
dull sinking of the heart that was to herself inexplicable. 

“Yes, but I hope there’s not much amiss with him. 
He’ll be out again shortly.” 

Faith said nothing, but turned her eyes more wistfully 
than ever to the white speck on the far horizon. The 
light was beginning to fade, and she could just discern the 
object of such vital interest to her. 

“ Let me take a look at her,” said Valasco, dropping on 
one knee beside Faith, and putting his eye to the glass. 
“How soon did the mate think we might intercept her 
course ?” he asked, while gazing through the telescope. 

“He thought about or before midnight,” answered she, 
timidly, and moving the folds of her dress a little aside 
from where they swept against the kneeling form of the 
captain. 

“I think it may be sooner, as the wind is now higher 
than ten minutes ago. ” 

“ Oh ! I hope so. I hope it so much !” 

The ejaculation sounded almost like a prayer. 

Faith had clasped her small hands over her knee, and 
bent slightly forward, straining her eyes to the westward, 
where the ship wa.s. 

The keen breeze lifted and played with her silky hair, 
and the warmth of the evening had flushed her soft face, 
and the dark hues of the sea were reflected in her dreamy, 
anxious eyes. 

The bright, fresh lips were slightly apart, and this gave 


270 


THE WOLF AND HIS PREY. 


an expression of more intense sensibility to her exquisite 
face. Evangeline upon her rock was not lovelier nor 
sadder than this fair creature. 

But the pathetic meanings of her beauty were all lost 
upon the fierce, passionate heart of the dark Spaniard at 
her feet, who thought only of her exquisite womanhood 
that he had been daily watching with an increasing in- 
terest. 

It had even occurred to Valasco that he might win the 
heart of this pure pearl, and to his sensuous admiration 
had been added a tinge of romantic passion that he had 
never yet conceived for any woman. 

Prey, and not conquest, had been the order of the 
hardy, bold seaman’s loves. 

What if, like the adventurous pirates of old sea tales, 
he might win him a bride in this delicate blossom that 
the waves had borne to his bark from the “Land of 
Flowers.?” 

In the roughest and rudest natures some chord lies 
hushed and waiting for the one touch that can evoke its 
notes to harmony with the diviner music of the higher 
life. 

Amid his wild career of bloodshed, and pillage, and 
general lawlessness, this evil soul had never till now 
caught a glimpse of that starry radiance that, like a halo, 
encircled the ideal woman to whom a man's spirit renders 
a homage as sincere as the ardent desires that thrill his 
mortal being in her presence. 


THE WOLF AND HIS PREY. 2Jl 

This feeling, as inexpressible as it was new to him, had 
invested Faith Hilar)' with a certain dignity, which, added 
to the sanctity that virgin purity exhales about itself, had 
protected the girl from any overtures of admiration that 
Could offend her delicacy — albeit the glowing eyes of 
the Spaniard occasioned her an invariable sensation of 
dread. 

Diez Valasco had good blood as well as bad in his 
veins, and all that was good in him felt the charm of 
kneeling there beside that lovely maiden, with her white 
fluttering skirts brushing his knee, like the snowy wing of 
some bright angel. 

He busied himself with the glass as long as possible, in 
order to retain his posture beside her. But it seemed less 
pleasing to the girl; for she rose, and, letting her work 
slip from her lap, began to walk slowly across the narrow 
deck, always watching the far-away sail. 

Valasco's black brows contracted. He seemed con- 
scious of her avoidance, and his evil nature resented it. 

What harm could it have done her to be still and let 
me dream of happiness?" he said within his heart. 

Dropping the glass, he. too rose, and standing with his 
back to the deck-rail, and his arms crossed over his 
massive chest, he watched Faith for a moment till he saw 
his gaze had brought the red spot to her sunny cheek. 
Then he said, the sunless half-smile showing the sharp 
edges of his glittering teeth : 

“Is madam, then, so weary of us that she welcomes 


273 


THE WOLF AND HIS PREY. 


the care of strange people in preference to the friends that 
have saved her life?" 

“ Oh, sir, don’t put it that way, please ! But only think 
how anxious you would be — if you were me — to — to — go 
on board a ship that could take you to land in spite 0/ /hi 
winds . " 

Is your home in Florida?" 

“Yes; at Lucerne, near 

“ Is there some one there whom you love very much?" 

“Yes; my governess and a friend.” 

“Is the friend a man?" 

“Yes; a noble, good man.” 

“Young or old?” 

“Oh, not any older than you are, I would say.” 

“Do you care for him more than Mr. Vernois?" 

Faith’s face, that hitherto had been quite placid, and 
even pleased in speaking of the absent friends, here grew 
scarlet at the mention of Vernois, remembering what he 
had said of her to this man. 

She had already informed the old sailor that his state- 
ment was cruel and false, but she had not cared to speak 
on so delicate a subject to the captain. 

It seemed now that she could not help justifying herself 
at all hazards; she answered, with a proud, defiant light 
on her fece : 

“Yes; I care a thousand times more for him. \ hate 
Mr. Vernois ; he was cruel to tell you that — ^that I was his 
wife. It was not, and never shall be true. ” 


THE WOLF AND HIS PREY, 


273 


She then made a brief statement of the facts which had 
led to her accident, and mentioned her real position, and 
the name of her guardian to the captain. 

“Who, then, is this other that you Move a thousand 
times more’ than Vernois?” 

“Mr. Warren; he is grand 1” 

“Is he married?" 

“Oh, dear, no!" 

“Then I suppose he is in love with you?” 

“ Good gracious, no ! He treats me just as he would 
his little sister, if he had one ; and if I had forty brothers, 
I'd never be so fond of them all put together as I am of 
him." 

“No?" 

Valasco was smiling in a pleased way, for the artless 
candor of Faith’s enthusiastic praise assured him that she, 
at least, was not “in love" with Mr. Warren. 

“ Is there any one in the world for whom you care more 
than for him ?” 

“Yes; my mother, of course.” 

“Where is your mother?" 

“At the German baths — I do not know which of 
them." 

“Who else is there, after your mother and this grand 
friend of yours, whom you love very much indeed?" 

“Only two other people in the whole world-r-my old 
nurse and Miss Draper, my sweet, kind little governess. 
How I wish I could see her now !" 


274 THE WOLF AND HIS FREY. 

The captain was silent for a little while, and, though his 
lids were cast down, he still saw, passing and repassing 
before him, the fairy-footed delicate girl. 

The twilight had fallen while they talked, and the first 
stars were throbbing through the purple haze that vailed 
the unclouded sky. No longer the distant sail was visible 
on the dim horizon, for the grayness of the evening shut it 
out. 

After a long silence the captain said : 

“But suppose you could see some one who loved ydu 
better than all of those you have spoken of, and a million 
like them, could love you ? ’ 

“I would still long for them, and only them. Their 
love is enough for me." 

She spoke the words slowly and sadly. Evidently she 
had taken no personal inference from Valasco’s significant 
question. 

After a few turns more she went below, and remained 
in her state-room until tea-time, half an hour later. 


A VULTURE ON GUARD, 


275 


CHAPTER XXX. 

A VULTURE ON GUARD. 

‘‘You will keep the ship steadily in the course on which 
she is now running, and not stir from the decks until I 
bid you, no matter if it is the whole night. You under- 
stand me.?” 

This was substantially what Valasco said to the Malay 
in his own tongue, whom he put in charge of the cutter 
at the moment of going down to join Faith in the cabin 
for their evening meal. 

The copper-hued visage of the East Indian showed no 
more interest in what was said to him than if he had been 
only a machine, instead of a man. He simply made a 
stolid sign of comprehension and assent, and assumed his 
post in silence. 

• “Will you come out to tea. Miss Hilary.?” said the cap- 
tain, for the first time addressing Faith by her name, and 
rapping gently on the door of her state-room. 

She appeared a moment later, and, as she placed herself 
at the table, said : 

“Where is Mr. Conway.? Is he still too ill to sup 
with us?” 

“He seems easier now. Tve just seen him, and, as he 
is sleeping soundly, I would not disturb him. Sleep is 
the best physic, after all, when one can get hold of it.” 


276 


A VULTURE ON GUARD. 


“I hope he will soon be out. I miss his kind face and 
cheery talk.” 

^‘Yes, the mate is a good fellow; but I could manage 
very well without his, or any man's company, as long as 
I have yours.” 

The words were rather bluntly spoken, but deferential 
enough, yet they made Faith so intensely uncomfortable 
that she became nervous. 

The consciousness of the dark, warm glance of the 
saturnine young captain playing over her did not tend to 
put her at her ease under his bluff compliment, but she 
made the best of it by seeming not to have heard it. She 
said ; 

“You have known each other a long time, have you 
not?” 

“Yes; a matter of five years, I think. Is your tea all 
right?” 

“Thank you, yes. How did you come to be friends 
and comrades? I don’t think you seem to be the least 
alike in disposition.” 

“ Perhaps that’s why we are friends. It is a long story, 
but, if you’d like. I’ll tell you how it came to pass that 
Conway and I own the Madcap together. ” 

“Yes; I’d be glad to hear, if you don’t mind tell- 
ing it.” 

There was a degree of eager interest in Faith’s tone, 
which came from the pleasure she felt in any impersonal 
topic that would divert Valasco’s attention from herself; 


A VULTURE ON GUARD. 


277 


but, man like, he construed her enthused manner to the 
advantage of his own vanity. 

The captain was not a bad talker when animated by a 
congenial theme. His voice w'as good, and excitement lit 
his sinister and somber countenance into a certain satanic 
beauty, which is to the last degree captivating to admirers 
of the brigand order of man. 

Faith Hilary was far from belonging to this type of 
woman, nevertheless her imaginative fancy was deeply 
arrested by the daring tale which the bold seaman nar- 
rated, weaving some of the most thrilling facts of his 
eventful life very cleverly into a romantic tissue of incident 
that placed him rather in the light of a fate-driven Orestes 
than the bad, unscrupulous man that he was. 

Possibly he painted his life history with the colors of his 
own palliative sophistries, which, no doubt, represented his 
deeds to his own mind less as willful crimes than the evil 
chances of a desperate calling to which he had been pre- 
destined. 

It seemed to Faith, as she listened, that it was a legend 
of fiction, with a wild sea-robber for its hero, that was 
being told by the captain. 

Sometimes she held her breath, and turned pale with 
horror, as he portrayed the perils by land and sea through 
which he had escaped death in its ghastliest shapes, and in 
which he had been forced to inflict it on those who endan- 
gered his own safety. 

Whether by design or not, the captain spun tut his 


278 


A VULTURE ON GUARD. 


Story to such length that the evening passed far into the 
night ere it was ended. Faith was still seated at the table ; 
her head leaned upon her hand, and her eyes, wide with 
^wonder as a child’s, watching the flickering lights of pas- 
sionate feeling that played over the Spaniard’s features as 
he talked. He had lighted and smoked out two cigars 
while he went through with his recital ; and sometimes 
Faith fancied that his flushing, tawny face and glittering 
eyes were the likeness of an evil spirit, seen thus through 
the vapors of smoke that he puffed from his handsome 
lips. 

In the gentlest and most timid of women there is a 
deep-hidden passion for daring courage in the opposite 
sex; and they will remain spell-bound by the deadliest 
tales of horror, of this grand masculine quality of in- 
trepidity, however reckless be the underlying theme. 

Perhaps the intense interest which the girl’s rapt face be- 
trayed led the bold outlaw to believe that he had awakened 
her fancy and touched her heart by his tragic narrative. 
Evidently his own feelings were wrought upon strangely 
by the combination of influences that environed him. 
The wild scenes that he had passed in review, the stillness 
of the deep night, the beautiful face of his fair auditor, 
his romantic passion for her, her utter, helplessness to de- 
fend herself against it, if he chose to urge his love on her 
acceptance — all tended powerfully to inflame the undisci- 
plined spirit of the rover. 

At last he could prolong the story no further. He cast 


A VULTURE ON- GUARD. 


279 


the glowing end of his cigar from his sinewy brown 
fingers, and, rising, stood before the girl like a towering 
impersonation of some lawless Viking of the ancient time, 
the strength of whose hand constituted the extent of its 
claim to any prey that it closed on. 

A slight shiver, as of some mysterious awe, swept 
through Faith’s delicate limbs. 

Bending a little toward her, and resting one of his 
mighty hands on the table, the captain said, in a voice 
that shook a little ; 

“It has been said, in song or story, that women like 
you are the angels whom God sends in hum^n shape upon 
the earth to redeem lost souls — such as mine.” 

Faith shuddered and closed her eyes, as if some vision 
full of terror had been presented to her sight. Fie went 
on, after a brief pause : 

‘^I have shown you what my past has been. At this 
moment I feel myself poised between two destinies, and it 
remains with you to decide which of them I shall follow. 
With your heaven-like smile to light me, I feel I may yet 
retrieve my way, and become an honest, useful man. Let 
but that hope shine on me, and I will kneel before you as 
a sinner to his guardian saint, and so reverence you until 
we can stand together before the holy altar for the mar- 
riage blessing.” 

He paused again ; the low and solemn earnestness ol 
his tone being hushed, left the silence of the waning night 
more oppressive that ever. His eyes gleamed on the girl 


38o 


A VULTURE ON- GUARD. 


like orbs of burning jet. The grandeur of passion in- 
vested him with something of dark sublimity. 

Faith had let her white, seared face droop under the 
blaze of his searing eyes, and she faltered out : 

*‘Oh, sir, it never can be that your life and mine shall 
not be set apart as far as they are now ! To bless and 
benefit a man, a woman must first love and respect him.” 

You mean, then, that for you to love and respect me 
is impossible.?” 

Under the calm question throbbed a pulse of rising 
anger that she could not help but feel, but she answered, 
firmly : 

“I could and would respect you profoundly, if, by the 
force of your own manhood, you forsake your evil life and 
fulfill your higher destiny; for, I believe, the sinner who 
repents and reforms is a nobler being than one who never 
erred. But to love you — that is different, and utterly im- 
possible T 

‘^You do not know that. A great love may kindle its 
own response.” 

“You deceive yourself. I pray you say no more.” 

“Do you think I will be silent now, when for the first 
time in all my wild life I have within my grasp a happi- 
ness almost divine ? Nay — loving me or hating me. Faith 
Hilary, you shall be my bride, and no other man's I” 

The desperate resolve of a conscienceless being vitalized 
every accent, and, ignorant of all fierce natures as she was. 
Faith felt that her fate trembled on this man’s will. 


A VULTURE ON GUARD. 


281 


Nevertheless, she met his terrible eye unflinchingly, as she 
answered : 

*‘lt is as Heaven pleases whether I shall ever love or 
not, but, rather than give myself unloving, I would die 
ten thousand times/" 

‘‘That is more easily said than done, fair maiden. 
Death does not always answer to our call, and there are 
worse fates than that I offer you. Come — reflect. We 
are as good as alone, you and I, upon this silent world of 
water and of darkness; give me your hand in solemn 
pledge that you will be my wife as soon as priest be 
found to wed us, and from that instant until the one in 
which we meet to plight the marriage vows, I swear I will 
not even so much as speak to you, if you wish I should 
not.” 

He held out to her his strong right hand, whose bloody 
deeds he had been so long jecounting to this “lily-maid” 
he now conjured to link her stainless youth with his dark 
life of crime. 

The girl drew back, and, instead of giving him the 
pledge he asked, she slipped her cold white fingers within 
the bosom of her dress, where old Graff Conway s dagger 
lay against her loudly beating heart. It flashed upon her 
now like a revelation that perhaps it was against a nearer 
pirate than he spoke of that the old man had thus armed 
her innocence. She said, without a quiver in her voice : 

‘ ‘ Sir, it is not the deed of a br^ive man to place before 
a helpless girl the alternative between pledging her honor 


282 


A VULTURE ON GUARD. 


to the utterance of false vows, or choosing to die ; but you 
have only to insist upon the demand you have just made, 
and you will see how quickly I shall decide. ” 

He instantly divined that her words were backed by her 
consciousness of the ability to defend herself against him, 
if need be. 

It was not in his thought to harm her fair, angelic 
womanhood other than by wringing from her now the 
promise which, once made, he felt she would keep at 
every' cost. The soft, exquisite purity of her nature and 
character had already lifted him above the coarse brutality 
that could offer, or even meditate, insult to a creature so 
divinely fair and true. 

In uttering the last word. Faith drew forth the keen, 
delicate blade, that flashed like a moonbeam under the 
lamp, and held it firmly clasped. 

The fear that she might do herself some dangerousr in- 
jury now so superseded every other idea in Valasco’s brain 
that, under a thoughtless impulse, he laid hold of the 
hand that held the naked dagger, intending simply to dis- 
arm the girl. 

Scarce had his fingers closed upon her snowy wrist when 
a pair of talon- like hands, more like a vulture’s claws than 
fingers of a human creature, griped round his throat, and 
bore him to the floor. 

For one dread moment there was no sound nor motion 
after the falling of the captain’s ponderous frame ; but, in 
the dimness and the smoky atmosphere, two forms were 


FAITH'S DELIVERANCE. 


^.83^ 

visible to the horror-stricken gaze of the girl — one lying 
full length, the other, lean and cadaverous, bending over 
him with still those fatal fingers clenched about their vic- 
tim s throat. 


CHAPTER XXXL 
faith's deliverance. 

A cry of remonstrance from the lips of the girl broke 
the frightful stillness that followed the captain's fall. It 
seemed to Faith that those powerful, athletic limbs had 
lost their capacity to move, far less to struggle, in the 
clutches of the strange, weird creature that crouched over 
him. 

It was, of course, the Malay. The white cotton tunic 
or toga that composed his Oriental garb, made the con- 
trast of his skin (which was almost as dark as bronze, and 
hard and dry as parchment) all the more remarkable. 

His long arms, bare to the shoulder, were muscular 
and supple as if their fibers were of iron wire, and their 
veins were swollen and cord-like as they strained at their 
deadly work. 

When Faith uttered that exclamation against the deed 
that too evidently was being committed before her eyes, 
the Malay seemed to halt for one instant as he turned on 


2U 


FAITH^S DELIVERANCE. 


her a look full of amazement It would not have sur- 
prised him more to have heard a lamb plead for mercy 
toward the wolf whose fang had been wrenched from its 
throat 

The wonderful, scintillant eyes, keen and vigilant as 
those of a bird of prey, darted a gjance of fierce con- 
tempt upon the girl, and then returned to the face on 
the floor, which now presented an aspect most horrible to 
behold. 

The eyes were starting from their sockets, ^and a deep 
purple hue overspread the skin ; a faint, gurgling sound 
was emitted from the open jaws, through which a 
blackening tongue protruded, and again the deep hush 
succeeded. 

And now a harsh, shrill laugh, like the shriek of the 
hyena, rang out from the stiff-drawn lips of the Malay, 
and, flinging aloft his terrible arms, he lifted his face up- 
ward, as if adjuring some unseen power, and pronounced 
one name in a strange language. 

It was the name of the woman he had loved and lost 
through the treachery of the man who now lay lifeless be- 
fore him. 

In the attitude and expression of the Oriental was that 
wild solemnity of some barbaric priest commending a 
human sacrifice to a pagan deity. 

And such, in fact, was the awful rite that had just been 
performed ; for this dark and wizard-like creature was one 
of that terrible band of Eastern devotees called “Thugs,” 


FAITH'S DELIVERANCE, 


285 


who constitute themselves a priesthood to the insatiate 
Goddess of Kali, and who consecrate every act of private 
revenge to that bloody and mystical religion which they 
profess. For the irreparable wrong that Valasco had in- 
flicted upon Morad, the Malay, the latter had sworn to be 
avenged. 

For this purpose he had attached himself to the for- 
tunes of the Spaniard, who dreamed not of the unquench- 
able fire that consumed the heart which Morad hid under 
his unrevealing features, nor had he any idea that the Ma- 
lay was concerned in the fate of the unfortunate one whose 
injuries were thus requited. 

With infinite patience had Morad watched his opportu- 
nity, not to kill his victim only, for that he might have 
achieved many times before, but to wreak his purpose at 
such time, and in such manner, as would most nearly cor- 
respond to the wrong he suffered at Valasco’s hands — to 
snatch him from some coveted delight, and in its stead 
give him death. 

It was now accomplished. 

But the dreadful close of this tragic scene was not wit- 
nessed by the poor, half-frenzied girl, who, at the moment 
when the Malay resented her entreating cry with such 
silent but bitter scorn, had fled into her state-room and 
locked herself in, feeling as if indeed she had been aban- 
doned to the mercy of human fiends. 

As the strange, savage cry of the strangler rang through 
the stillness. Faith fell upon her knees with a piteous ejaC' 


286 


FAITH'S DELIVERANCE. 


ulation to Heaven, and buried her face upon her couch, 
more dead than alive with terror. 

She never knew how long she remained thus, convulsed 
with an agony that no words can picture; but she was 
roused to something like self-possession by hearing her 
name called by the fresh, cheery voice of Graff Conway. 

“It’s me— only me, Graff Conway, your old friend, 
my dear. We’re all right now — open the door, and come 
out to me. ” 

Scarcely able to move, yet longing for the sight of the 
kind, re-assuring face of the old mate and her protector, 
she managed to unfasten the door, and then sank down 
all white and trembling. 

“Come, look up, little one I Where’s your courage? 
It’s no time to give way now, my dear, for you’ll soon be 
aboard a first-class steamship. Just come on deck and 
look at her lights. ” 

“Oh, Mr. Conway 1” 

‘ ‘ It’s as true as I stand here. Come and see — then I’ll 
tell you just how it all happened.” 

“What has become of the captain?” asked Faith, in a 
hoarse, frightened way, shrinking up closer to the arm of 
the mate, on which her cold little hands were tightly 
clasped as he led her through the cabin. 

“Let us not mind about him — he’s safe enough, I can 
tell you. ” 

Faith did not understand, and hoped the mate’s reply 
meant that he had come to the rescue in time to save mis- 


FAim^S DELIVERANCE. 


287 


chief; but ere she cculd question further she was borne on 
deck, and there, in full view, stood the lights and the 
dimly outlined rigging of a splendid steamer. 

She was still some miles away, but the cutter was head- 
ing toward her before a gale of wind that took her flying 
like a gull over the starlit waves. 

The Madcap’s signals were all out, and Conway assured 
Faith that all doubt was over of her safe transmission to 
the steamer within a very short time. 

Seeing, from several of her remarks, that she was un- 
conscious of the dark fate of the captain, the old man 
allowed her to believe that nothing serious had happened. 

He had gathered enough from Morad’s signs and words 
of mongrel lingo, to understand that the Malay had inter- 
posed to save her from danger. The rest was simple. 

Immediately on dispatching the captain, Morad has- 
tened to release the mate, to whom he confided the fact 
that, contrary to the captain’s orders, he had changed the 
cutter's course in consequence of having overheard the 
conversation between them ; and that, in perpetrating this 
act of disobedience, he had prepared himself to carry out 
his purpose at all hazards. He foresaw that before the 
night ended he would have to kill Valasco, but was not 
prej3arcd for the circumstances which led to that horrid 
climax. They suited the Malay's idea of a perfect act of 
retaliation all the better. 

The first pale gleam of dawn was in the sky when the 
cutter ran alongside the magnificent European steamship 


288 


FAITH'S DELIVERANCE, 


Queen Guinevere. The mate of the Madcap took it upon 
himself to tell how he had picked up a drowned girl off 
the Florida coast, and by contrary winds been driven 
hither and thither, unable to land her. 

Of her companion, and every other unfortunate inci- 
dent connected with her disaster, he kept secretly silent, 
but so presented her case that she was at once received 
aboard the ship with the utmost sympathy and cordiality 
expressed by the numerous passengers. 

Belore parting with his fair charge, the old sailor advised 
her to tell no more than he had related in her presence, 
and to put herself confidently under the care of Captain 
Desmond, who would feel in duty bound to arrange for 
her safe return to her friends. 

There were tears of deepest gratitude in the bright eyes 
of the poor little wanderer, as she pressed^ the horny hand 
of the old sailor to her lips, and breathed a prayer upon it 
that Heaven would bless and protect him and his. 

Graff Conway bent over the sweet bowed head, and 
whispered, while the muscles of his hard old face twitched 
painfully : 

‘ ‘ My dear, Graff Conway's been a wicked o‘ld devil in 
his time, and little deserves the honor of befriending an 
angel like yourself; but if God spares him yet a little 
while to make atonement, neither man nor devil shall 
ever make him do another act that he’d be ashamed 
for you to see. ” 

As for Morad, the Malay, he stood apart upon the little 


FAITH^S DELIVERANCE, 


2»9 


deck of the Madcap, and, when Faith put out her hand 
to bid him adieu, he stepped back, folded his terrible arms 
over his breast, shook his head in sign of refusal to let her 
touch him, and made a salaam before her as slaves do 
before the sovereigns of the East. 

♦ ♦ ♦ ' ♦ 4e 

The good ship Queen Guinevere was bound, with a full 
list of passengers and valuable cargo, for the South Ameri- 
can coast, and would touch at Georgetown, in the British 
dominion of Guiana. 

The captain of the steamer commended Miss Hilary 
with great kindness to the good offices of an English 
family among his passengers. 

Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey, with their two daughters, one 
of whom was near Faith’s age and siae, became at once 
deeply interested in the fortunes of the lone and beautiful 
young creature whose misfortunes had cast her upon their 
sympathies, and whose personal attributes of manner and 
character so soon won for her the affectionate esteem ot 
every one with whom she came in contact. 

Miss Godfrey pressed upon Faith the use of her ward- 
robe, and the two girls soon became as intimate and as 
devoted as sisters. 

Before the steamer reached her port it seemed to Faith 
that these new friends had made an atmosphere of home 
about her sad heart. 

Nevertheless her thoughts turned anxiously to Lucerne, 
and she entreated Mr. Godfrey to take the most immediate 


290 


FAITH'S DELIVERANCE. 


opportunity of communicating with her guardian, who 
would, of course, come or send for her at once. 

Meantime she remained a guest in the beautiful home 
of these English people, who resided upon some salu- 
brious heights overlooking the city of Georgetown. 

Mr. Godfrey was a wealthy merchant, who had just 
returned with his family from a visit to their relatives in 
England. 

After hearing from Faith just how she was placed to- 
ward the family at Lucerne, and that her mother was not 
there, the merchant advised her to remain under his care 
until she was advised of her guardian’s wishes in regard to 
her return, rather than risk taking the voyage alone, and 
before she had recovered from the fatigues and anxieties 
of her recent eventful sojourn on the sea. 

Both Mr. Godfrey and his wife discerned in the pale, 
anxious face of the girl that she had sustained a severe 
ordeal, from which she must recover before taxing her 
strength further. For the present we leave her with them. 


MISTHESS AND MAID, 


291 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

MISTRESS AND MAID. 

T 

A period of several weeks has elapsed since we left 
Mathew Croft silently combating the singular situation in 
which he found himself placed — imprisoned on the charge 
of a felony so dark, and surrounded by people who, in 
the time of his arrogant prosperity, accepted his civilities 
and accorded him their own, yet now, in the hour of his 
calamitous need, left him to a friendless solitude. 

Too haughty to press for reasons as to the refusal of 
the two lawyers who had rejected his case, with the large 
fee assured for their services, and the still larger one ccw- 
tingent on his safe delivery from the disgraceful position 
he now occupied, he determined to engage a young 
attorney of inferior standing at the bar, merely to collect 
the neecssary materials for the preparation of his defense, 
and to follow the illustrious yet fatal example of the 
celebrated criminal, Eugene Aram, by acting as his own 
counsel. 

In all- of his legal encounters with his brethren of the 
bar, Mathew Croft had found himself eminently successful 
in seizing upon and using those unexpected turns in the 
evidence for which neither side could be wholly prepared ; 


29 * 


MISTRESS AND MAID, 


and although a stolid and phlegmatic man in other regards, 
his professional acumen amounted to genius. 

There was a still more potent reason for this decision, 
which was forced upon him by the mortifying withdrawal 
of the two jurists from his service. 

Croft had obstinately conceived the idea that Rachel 
was not provided with the proper character of evidence to 
convict him of the alleged crime, after such a lapse of 
time, during which not a breath of suspicion had touched 
him. 

It was true that her accurate and circumstantial state- 
ment of his entire proceedings that related to the poison- 
ing were so startling as to deter him from an open defiance 
of her power to harm him as long as he could obtain her 
silence on safer terms. 

But he had, from the moment of his arrest, resolved to 
meet her terrible charges by a flat and absolute denial, and 
by assuming lunacy for the author of them. 

The explanation of his acquiescence in her demands 
upon him he had already given to Mr. Fields. 

Lame as this was, he did not despair of rendering it 
so plausible that the jury and the public would. accept it, 
provided he could successfully repel her monstrous charges 
against him. 

The time was rapidly approaching for the sitting of the 
court at which his case would be tried ; but as yet Mr. 
Dale, the young lawyer now enlisted in Croft’s cause, had 
been able to ascertain so little that was of valuable con- 


MISTRESS AND MAID, 


295 

sideration to his client, that the prisoner was forced to 
rest content with the hope of invalidating such testimony 
as might appear on the trial. 

Not a syllable had yet been heard of the woman who 
was expected to confront him with the charge of having 
poisoned her, and, of course, the counsel for the prosecu- 
tion were inscrutable. 

Neither by word nor letter had the ostensible wife of 
the prisoner attempted to hold any communication with 
him. 

Through Mr. Dale, Croft learned that Leda preserved 
the severest seclusion, never leaving her own apartments, 
nor admitting to them a single creature, save the tall 
negress, who had always attended on her from her child- 
hood, and who had been the confidential servant of Mrs. 
Morgan from the time of her child’s birth, when the 
devotion, dignity, and faithful reticence of the slave, 
Roxana, had attached her Northern mistress very warmly 
to her. 

It is a notable fact that, despite the enthusiastic philan- 
thropy felt and professed by the Northern people (and all 
other anti-slavery communities) for the unhappy condition 
of the blacks, yet, when brought into any personal rela- 
tions with these slaves, the advocates of freedom and 
equality invariably manifested a violent, and sometimes 
unconquerable, aversion toward their presence or con- 
tiguity. It was a matter of the keenest surprise to these 
humane theorists if they saw a black nurse allowed to 


294 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 


fondle or caress a white child, or if a master or mistress 
saluted. a slave with a cordial grasp of the hand in meeting 
or parting, after or before a long separation. 

These affectionate manifestations were common among 
the valued and privileged members of the household 
retinue toward their owners. Mrs. Morgan's strong attach- 
ment to Roxana was the more remarkable because of her 
dislike of having the negro servants about her, and her 
profound mistrust of them caused her to substitute white 
servants whenever she came to reside for the winter at 
Lucerne. Roxana was the only exception to this rule, 
and she deserved to be ; for such was her devotion to the 
child and the mother, that the slave elected, di her own 
choice, to leave her family and go with Mrs. Morgan as 
nurse to the little Leda, no matter for what length of time 
the separation from her own people lasted. It was not, 
therefore, surprising that Roxana came to enjoy more of 
her mistress’ confidence than any other person; and it 
was to this faithful heart that Mrs. Morgan, in dying, 
commended her daughter with the most solemn ad- 
monitions. Her last intelligible words to Roxana were : 

Remember, you will account to me, at the final day, 
for your love and devotion to my child, who will have, 
in this wide world, no other disinterested affection but 
yours. ” 

When Leda informed Roxana of her intended union 
with Mathew Croft, the slave had lifted up her voice 
against it with the solemnity of a Hebrew prophetess. 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 295 

*‘But why, Roxana — why do you so bitterly denounce 
this marriage ?” 

‘‘Honey, I dun’ know, but all I does know is dis — 
your blessed mar would bury you fus’, ef she had any say 
in dis match.” 

“What makes you think that, Roxana?” 

“I b’lieve she hated the very earth he trod.” 

‘ ‘ Did she tell you so ?” 

“No. It wasn’t her way to tell much; but I had eyes 
for to see, an’ I saw dat she fairly shivered when he 
came nigh her the last time he came to the house arter 
her sickness. ” 

“Nonsense. It is you who hate him, because you do 
not wish to have him as your master. But that need not 
alarm you. I shall always see that you are not interfered 
with. Say no more to me against Mr. Croft, for I am 
determined ta marry him.” 

This was all that ever occurred between Leda and the 
slave previous to or after the fatal marriage. Roxana’s 
devotion continued unabating; and, when the dreadful 
catastrophe of Croft’s arrest justified her instinctive aver- 
sion to him as a husband for Leda, no word of reproach 
passed the lips of the slave; but it seemed almost to 
crush her, as if in some way she must bear the odium of 
the humiliating misfortune when she came to give account 
of her trust to Leda’s mother “at the final day.” Had 
Mrs. Morgan designed to secure Roxana’s fidelity by 
practicing upon the powerful superstition that ruled her 


296 


MISTRESS AND MAID, 


race, she could have fallen upon no device so sure of 
accomplishing this end as her solemn summons to the 
negress to meet her at the awful day of doom and 
reckoning. 

One evening, about twilight, Roxana entered her mis- 
tress’ room, bearing a small silver tray with a cup of tea 
upon it. 

*‘My chile, you must take this for your headache,” 
said the old woman, placing the tea upon a table at 
Leda’s side. 

Mechanically the pale, statuesque woman lifted her face 
from the nerveless hand on which it leaned, and drank 
the refreshing beverage without a word. 

A strange metamorphosis had taken place in the proud, 
imperious, queenly mistress of Lucerne. A dumb dejec- 
tion had fallen upon her haughty spirit, and all the fire in 
her once passionate face had died out, leaving it cold, and 
and white, and almost expressionless. 

There had been visible waste in the voluptuous curves 
of her grand form, for her dress, that formerly fitted like 
wax to her faultless figure, now lay over it loosely, and 
exposed the ravages that it had suffered during weeks of 
close confinement and mental torture. 

To a vain, proud woman like Leda, the humiliation 
that had so publicly fallen upon her destiny would alone 
have been enough to blight and sear her nature; but, 
added to this, was the devouring anguish of having for- 
ever lost the only man who had ever wakened her selfish 


MISTRESS AND MAID. 297 

heart to a profound sentiment of passion. Had the hope 
of winning back the devotion of Gordon Warren remained 
to her — no matter on what unrighteous conditions — she 
would defiantly and recklessly have ignored the disgrace 
of her husband's fate, and abandoned herself to the over- 
ruling emotions of love. But in the scorn of his look 
during their last interview she had read the doom of all 
her hopes in him. 

One faint chance remained to keep her heart alive. 
When Gordon Warren should be sufficiently recovered 
from his desperate illness to endure an interview, she 
would make one last appeal to his compassion, and once 
more charge him with being the author of her calamities 
by his rejection and desertion of the unselfish love she 
had laid at his feet, at a time when love could have been 
the only motive to animate her choice. After drinking the 
tea, Leda said to her faithful attendant : 

“Roxana, what news have you for me of Mr. Warren's 
condition this evening?" 

“Well, my chile, he seems to be somethin' better. He’s 
a-sittin' up for the fust time. They is all tryin' to keep 
from him the news of what’s to happen to-morrow." 

Leda shuddered at this allusion to the trial of Mr. Croft, 
which would open on the following day. She said nothing, 
and the slave went on : 

“Doctor Wise has warned them agin’ lettin' him hear a 
word about that or anything that could excite him in the 
least, for a shock would about finish him now.” 


MISTRESS AND MAID, 


298 

‘‘ Have you seen him ?” 

Yes; his face is about like that chalk figger up thar," 
pointing to a Greek bust in marble that occupied a niche 
above Leda's writing-desk, “and his eyes blazes like pine 
torches on a dark night.” 

“ Does he talk ?” 

“Not a breath — silent as the tomb. I did hear him 
say a few words to Miss Draper about two hours ago.” 

“ What did he say?” 

“They had rolled his chair into the library, nigh the 
front window, and Miss Draper was on one side of his 
chair a-helpin’ to move it gently along with the doctor. 
When they stopped it at the open window, his eyes lit on 
the bird-cage bangin’ among the vines on the piazza, with 
Miss Hil’ry’s canary in it. He said : 

“ ‘Poor little Faith 1 I wonder if her bird grieves for 
her, too?’ 

“Arter he spoke this, he shut down his eyelids, and 
two big drops fell down on his face.” 

“What else?” 

Leda’s tone was hard and chill. 

“Well, nothin’. Miss Draper she went out and left 
him then, for she got to cry in’, too, and I s’pose she was 
afeard he’d see her at it, and fret worse. ” 

“Is he still in the library?” 

“Yes, honey. They wanted him to go back to bed, 
but he begged ’em to let him be still, and leave him there 
alone for awhile, Mio5 Draper and Mrs, Warren’s gone 


LEVA'S COUP D'ETAT. 


299 ' 

out for a little walk in the lime grove. They axed me to 
listen for his bell till they gets back.” 

A sudden light kindled in Leda^s languid eyes. She 
rose quietly, and said ; 

‘'Roxana, I will go and speak to him. You keep 
watch at the front door, and rap lightly at the library 
when you see the two ladies returning from their walk. 

I do not care to meet them.** 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 
leda's coup d'etat. 

Negroes have a native love of intrigue, and more 
quickly discern an ulterior purpose in any significant 
duty to which they may be assigned than more intelli- 
gent beings. 

Easily guessing that her mistress might wish an unin- 
terrupted interview with the young gentleman, whose 
former devotion to both Mrs. and Miss Morgan was still 
vivid in Roxana's memory, she took her stand upon the 
front piazza, just where her tall form and white kerchief 
could be plainly visible to the.two ladies who paced slowly 
to and fro under the limes, and who, seeing her there 
within easy reach of the invalid’s voice, would doubtless 
prolong their stroll in the fresh, sweet air of the spring 


300 


LEDA'S COUP D'ETAT, 


evening, enjoying such delightful recreation the more be* 
cause of their long confinement in the sick-room, where 
for weeks they had relieved each other in the duties of 
nurse. 

Meantime Leda had passed swiftly from her chamber, 
through the unlighted parlor, into the library. The moon 
shone brilliantly, and poured a flood of silvery whiteness 
through the open casements. The sick man sat absorbed 
in reverie or asleep, she could not tell which, for his eyes 
were closed and his form motionless. 

It frightened Leda to look upon his countenance, white 
as porcelain and almost as transparent — so etherealized by 
long illness and the effects of his burning fevers, that he 
looked more like an embodied spirit than a man, reclining 
there upon his cushions, with the pale moonbeams shining 
over him. 

The soft trailing of Leda’s dress caught his sensitive ear. 
Without opening his eyes, he said, feebly : 

Is it you, mother?” 

**No; it is I — Leda.” 

The voice was tremulous and suppliant, and, raising his 
lids, Warren saw kneeling before him, with her hands 
folded on her breast, and her beautiful pale face sadly 
drooping, Leda, in the full blaze of the moonlight 

He did not speak nor stir fpr a little while. The change 
in her was almost as startling to him as she had found it in 
himself. The almost dazzling splendor of her royal beauty 
had given place to a delicate, chastened, and, in her, pa- 


LEDA^S COUP DIKTAT, 


301 


thetic loveliness — still regal and incomparable, but rather 
that of a dethroned and suffering queen than the proud, 
insolent, invincible Circe that he had found her at the first. 

Her whole person, as well as her attitude, seemed to 
offer a prayer for his forbearance and pity. However she 
may have sinned, there could be no question as to her 
having suffered fierce agonies. Every line of her face and 
form showed this. To see her kneeling there so humbly, 
and remember how lately she had reigned queen of the 
world that ever bows its neck to wealth and beauty, was a 
thing to touch a brave, manly soul like Gordon Warren’s. 

He said, very gently, but firmly : 

‘'Rise, I pray you, madam. I am not able to move, 
else I had long since raised you from so unbecoming a 
posture.” 

“No ; I must and will kneel to you until you have heard 
and granted, or else denied my prayer. ” 

She had raised her eyes to him now, and they were filled 
with unshed tears, that gave to her face an indescribable 
expression of woe ; then she hurried her words in a low, 
piteous way, and unfolded to him very briefly, but point- 
edly, all that had transpired, from the moment of Rachel’s 
appearance at Lucerne, a week after her marriage, until 
the present moment. She artfully made herself the mar- 
tyred one in the dark romance, reminding Warren that it 
was his desertion that had driven her to accept Croft’s offer 
of marriage, with all the dreadful consequences that now 
overwhelmed her. 


302 


LEVA'S COUP D'ETAT. 


At the end she said, lifting her clasped hands entreat- 
ingly : 

“To-morrow his infamy and my humiliation will be 
proclaimed in open court before the world. Guilty or not 
of the crime alleged against him, the fact of his former 
marriage and the existence of his former wife remains. 
What, then, am I better than an outcast, and an object of 
scorn and contemptuous pity for all the world ? Oh, Gor- 
don I Gordon 1 remember that you promised my dead 
mother to befriend her lonely child ; remember that it was 
your abandonment that sent me to this fate, and save, oh I 
save me, at least, from meeting my disgrace alone — un- 
cared for, unsustained 1 I was not only willing to unite 
my destiny with yours when I still believed myself rich 
and honored, but I longed to prove my love for you by 
embracing your poverty and obscure station. Shall I 
now, in my hour of dire need, pray for your protection 
in vain ?” 

“God knows you shall not, so far as it lies in my 
power to shelter you,” said Warren, leaning forward, and 
reaching to her one of his thin, weak hands, that shook 
like an old man’s from sheer feebleness. 

His voice was husky with emotion. 

Leda seized the emaciated hand, carried it passionately 
to her lips, then pressed it to her heart, sobbing out words 
of gratitude, and mingling them with epithets of frantic 
devotion. 

It was some moments before Warren was able to detach 


LEDA^S COUP D'ETAT. 


303 


his weak fingers from the eager clasp of Leda’s hands, and 
induce her to rise from her abject posture beside him. 

Although he by no means divined the construction 
which she intended ultimately to place upon his acts and 
words, he dimly foresaw that he would be sorely tried be- 
fore all was done. 

He was at present too enfeebled in brain and body to 
attempt to cope with the situation further than to quiet 
Leda's agitation, and, if possible, release himself from the 
discussion of her affairs until he should have time to re- 
flect upon the unnatural and most distressing complica- 
tion which she had just revealed to him. 

Already his head throbbed with a painful sense of op- 
pression, and his nerves became tremulous, a faintness 
overcame him, and he said : 

“Give me a draught of the tonic, please,” pointing to 
where a decanter and glass stood upon the table. 

She poured out a potion of the medicated wine, which 
he drank, and then said to her, simply ; 

“You must pardon me if I beg that you will leave me 
to myself for the present. If I am to help you, I must 
collect my ideas, and, to do this, I must be utterly at 
rest.” 

She once more leaned down and touched his hand with 
her lips, then silently left him. 

She had availed herself of his physical weakness to 
wring from it what she deemed a valuable concession, and 
she feared to tresspass further on his debility. 


304 


ARRAIGNED. 


A little later, when his mother and Miss Draper came in 
from their walk, they found him asleep, and apparently 
much exhausted. 

A cold dew had gathered on his brow, and his respira- 
tion seemed troubled. Sleep was the best restorative pos- 
sible, and they left him to waken of himself. 

As Miss Draper passed from the library into the hall, she 
saw that a stranger, a gentleman, stood at the door upon 
the piazza. She immediately went forward. 

The gentleman uncovered as he bowed to her, and she 
saw that he was a man of venerable and dignified appear- 
ance. 

“Good-morning, sir. Will you walk in?” she asked, 
seeing that he still stood beyond the threshold. 

“First oblige me, miss, by ascertaining if Mrs. Croft 
will be pleased to receive Mr. Elmore Craig. ” 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

ARRAIGNED. 

Prepared as the community had been by the newspaper 
publications, and common gossip, for the impending trial 
of the well-known attorney, Mathew Croft, on the charge 
of attempted murder of his wife by poison, it was not 


ARRAIGNED, 305 

Strange that great excitement prevailed among the citizens 
of — — when the day appointed for the case arrived. 

We shall enter the court-room at the moment when 
Mr. Tremont, the solicitor for the State, opens the indict- 
ment. 

The jury has been duly impaneled and charged with the 
prisoner, who has pleaded *‘not guilty.” 

There they sit confronting each other — the twelve who 
represent the country to whom the accused appeals for 
justice, and the man whom these are solemnly sworn to 
declare a verdict upon according to the evidence. 

Twelve calm, strong, earnest, resolute faces, that do not 
look as if they could be easily moved by impulse or any 
unimportant causes, are all turned full upon the prisoner, 
who sits at ease within the dock, and glances deliberately 
over his judges as if taking the measure of each man’s 
mental and moral caliber. 

Mathew Croft’s large, composed face gives out no sign 
of inward trepidation. It is true that anxiety and impris- 
onment have somewhat worn and whitened it, but so won- 
derfully controlled are its lineaments that no one present 
suspects that any effort has been necessary to bring to 
those stolid features that look of supreme assurance of 
safety. 

With the alert interest of a mere looker-on, he turns 
himself from the jurors to fix a steadfast regard upon the 
counsel for th^ State, who thus addresses the court and 


ARRAIGNED. 


3 -.6 

* ‘‘May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, 
it is my painful duty to arraign before you to-day a man 
whom this community have honored and trusted. The 
crime imputed to the prisoner at the bar is that of a will- 
ful attempt to murder the wife of his bosom, by means the 
most detested and abhorred of any that blackens the cat- 
alogue of crimes. 

“Such an accusation naturally excites the indignation 
of honest minds against the criminal. I shall not en- 
deavor to increase this feeling which it is your duty to re- 
sist, for the nature of our present inquiry calls for your 
sober and dispassionate attention. 

“The offense with which the prisoner is charged is one 
easy of perpetration, but difficult of detection. The mur- 
derer by poison is not pointed out to justice by the bloody 
niarks of his guilt, nor the fatal instrument of his crime ; 
his horrid purpose is planned in secret, and may even be 
executed without his presence; his guilt can only be 
traced by circumstances; but circumstances do, and in 
this case will, I think, as plainly reveal the guilty purpose 
as if a hundred witnesses testified to the actual commis- 
sion of the crime. 

“It is my duty to state to you those circumstances, and 
to add to them such observations as the nature of the case 
fairly affords. 

•The author is largely indebted for her information, and some of 
her expressions in the above, to the legal report of a certain celebrated 
English trial, 


ARJ^AIGNED. 


307 


“These observations will be subject to the correction of 
a discerning judge, who will permit nothing to be placed 
in the scales of justice but what ought to be weighed 
there. 

“Gentlemen, the prisoner, Mr. Mathew Croft, is ac- 
cused of having verified the fable of the wolf who clothed 
himself in the spotless fleece of a sheep, and, entering a 
peaceful fold thus disguised, carried off, to be destroyed, 
one of its lambs. 

“In brief, Mr. Mathew Croft, in the guise of a holy 
preacher of the gospel of truth and righteousness, did 
take unto himself from the simple and honest congrega- 
tion to whom he preached at Bethel, the young woman, 
Rachel Logan, the orphan ward of one of the elders of 
that church. 

“This young, trustful creature, together with her for- 
tune of $60,000, in her own right, were by the prisoner 
duly and lawfully appropriated. Almost immediately 
thereafter Mr. Croft removes with his wife from her home 
and her friends, and, on the pretext of ill-health, goes to 
reside in a distant State in one of the Gulf cities. 

“Soon after his arrival in the new locality — where he 
still professes, but does not follow, his priestly calling — 
his wife, Rachel, falls into a feeble state of health, for 
which her physicians can discern no reasonable cause in a 
woman of her robust and perfect organism. So alarming 
do her symptoms become, that their diagnosis finally 
points to softening of the brain, accompanied by a letting 


3o8 


AJiRAIGNED. 


down of the nervous tone, which reduces the patient to 
the pitiable condition of a bed-ridden invalid. During 
all this, Mr. Croft's conduct toward his suffering wife is 
marked by a tender solicitude worthy of the most de- 
voted husband. 

‘‘From his hand the poor sick wife craves and receives 
the nourishment and prescriptions ordered for her relief, 
and, finally, as the close of the sad drama approaches, it is 
he who watches alone beside her pillow through the still 
hours of the night. Only one human creature — whose 
testimony cannot under the laws be admitted into this 
court — divines a treacherous intent beneath all this out- 
ward devotion. 

“Amy, the slave and nurse, suspects, from certain con- 
ditions in which she finds her mistress after the vigils kept 
by her master alone, that over-doses of the narcotic must 
have been administered to cause the deep languor and 
‘ prostration that succeed Mr. Croft’s attendance at her noc- 
turnal slumbers. Imbued with this idea, the slave deter- 
mines to watch unseen in the antechamber, which is in 
darkness, what quantity of the night-draught is adminis- 
tered to her mistress. 

“Amy hears the hour appointed for the dose strike 
from the clock upon Mrs. Croft’s mantel, and, imme- 
diately after, hears her master propose the night-draught, 
hears Mrs. Croft’s affectionate assent to it, and watches 
while it is prepared in a screened nook formed by the tall 
bed-head disposed against an angle of the wall. * 


ARRAIGJ^ED, 


309 

*‘Here Mr. Croft is safe from observation either from 
any person in or out of the chamber, unless one who ap- 
proached so near that he must be aware of the presence. 

“But Mr. Croft has not counted upon the distinct re- 
flection which the bureau mirror makes of the whole scene 
in the angle to one standing at a certain point within the 
antechamber. 

“Not chance, nor the calculations of an ignorant slave, 
but that mysterious Nemesis that tracks the criminal, 
places the old servant, Amy, just where this reflection 
meets and arrests her astonished sight. She sees her 
master empty a smaller potion than the one prescribed 
for the night-draught into the apothecary's glass used for 
the purpose of measuring the dose accurately. This glass 
he holds up to the light after pouring the medicine into 
it, and then Amy is struck by a wonderful transfiguration 
of her master's subdued and grief-stricken countenance 
into an expression of fiendish enjoyment of some idea 
which Amy's subtle fancy connects with the physic he is 
about to administer to her mistress. This conclusion is 
presently justified, when the slave sees her master, Mr. 
Croft, take from the inner pocket of his vest a small pack- 
age, which he unwraps. 

“From a quantity of dark tissue paper Amy sees him 
take a little crystal flask, and then unstop and empty its 
contents into the glass with her mistress' medicine. 

“At this moment the slave hears Mrs. Croft ask her 
husband : 


310 


ARRAIGNED. 


** ‘What is burning?’ 

“Amy testifies that a faint odor as of burning cloth ex- 
hales from the vial that Mr. Croft empties. 

“She hears him answer that the smell arises from a piece 
of linen that has fallen into the lamp ; but Amy plainly 
sees in the reflection from the looking-glass that no linen 
has been near the lamp. With a sense of some dreadful 
injustice to her helpless mistress underlying all this, the 
slave, impotent to interfere, except at a cost which she has 
not the courage to incur, sees the fatal dose administered, 
and hears the devoted woman utter her loving gratitude to 
the man who thus ministers to her sufferings. 

“The slave then beholds her master carefully rinse the 
glass and the crystal' flask with a sponge that he uses in 
the basin of water, and afterward squeezes and returns to 
its place on the towel-rack. 

“The flask he carefully re-wraps in the foldings of 
tissue-paper, and begins to replace it in his pocket, when 
a sudden aversion to carrying it on his person seems to 
seize him, and he looks about for a suitable place to hide 
or destroy the empty flask. At last he espies, among the 
long-accumulated layers of dust that overhang the tester 
of the tall canopy of the bed, what he conceives to be a 
convenient receptacle for the tiny package. The house- 
maids have respected that tester so long that it is not 
likely they will very soon again interfere with its time- 
honored dust; and into the midst of it he tosses the 
package. 


ARRAIGNED. 


311 

Hours later, the family, with whom Mr. and Mrs. 
Croft are boarders, are awakened with the announcement 
of Mrs. Croft’s death. It is only a little more sudden 
than they had any reason to expect, and no one seems 
surprised. The inquest pronounces on the body its ver- 
dict that the deceased had come to her death from bodily 
derangements duly attested by her attending physician. 
By the urgent request of the landlady, the body is re- 
moved to the chapel at the cemetery, the time being mid- 
summer, and the locality liable to infectious diseases, that 
a corpse lying under a tin roof on an August day might 
generate. At a late hour of the ensuing evening the ob- 
sequies of the deceased are performed, and within twenty- 
four hours after the bereaved husband had quitted the city 
forever, leaving his rooms and effects in charge of the 
landlady, with directions to have his things cared for until 
she received his instructions concerning them. These, 
gentlemen, are the facts as they appear on the face of 
the evidence. It remains for them, and their underly- 
ing horrors, to be developed before your eyes by the 
testimony that has been accumulated, and will be evolved 
for your consideration. Justice demands that you sift this 
man’s intentions thereby. We shall, with the permission 
of the court, proceed to array the witnesses in due course 
and form.” 

The counsel for the prosecution was silent for. a few 
moments, and all eyes examined the face of the prisoner. 
It was calm and intrepid as ever, but under the bristling 


AKRAJGNED. 


312 

eyebrows a ray, intent and burning, shot toward the wit- 
ness-stand, upon which appeared a woman, whose coun- 
tenance was utterly unknown to the prisoner. In an- 
swer to the question put by Mr. Craig, who examined the 
evidence for the State, the woman made these statements : 

*‘My name is Eliza Lock. I am the youngest daugh- 
ter of Hariet Rowe, of Galveston. I do remember the 
prisoner, who, with his wife, Rachel Croft, boarded, du- 
ring the summer of 18 — , with my mother. Yes, he is 
much changed as to the color of his hair and beard, which 
were black when I knew him, otherwise I find little altera- 
tion. I would know him anywhere. His face isn't easily 
forgotten. I was seventeen years old when he lived in my 
mother’s house. He was devoted to his wife, and she 
worshiped the ground he walked on, She was well when 
she came. She got into poor health pretty soon after. 
She took to her bed in about six weeks, and staid there. 
She liked to have him always with her. At first the old 
nurse, Amy, slept in her room, and gave the medicine. 
About three or four days before she died Mr. Croft took to 
sitting up all night with her. I did not know anything 
about Amy’s going back to the chamber after she was dis- 
missed for the night; but my room opened on the back 
staircase, and about midnight I heard crying outside of 
my door. I got up and looked out. Amy was seated on 
the stairs, with her apron over her head, crying. I said, 
‘What ails you? Is Mrs. Croft worse?’ She said, ‘I 
don’t know ; I am scared about her, ’ I said, * Go to bed ; 


ARRAIGNED. 


313 


you can’t mend matters by sitting there all night.’ I went 
back to bed and to sleep, and, before day, heard that Mrs. 
Croft was dead. No, there was nothing strange in Mr. 
Croft's manner ; he was very sad indeed. The old woman, 
Amy, went on like mad. Yes, Mr. Croft did kindly con- 
sent to have the body taken from the house early next 
day. Amy would not go with it My mother, and sister, 
and myself went to the cemetery in the carriage with Mr. 
Croft behind the hearse. He looked very sad all the way. 
I went up to Mrs. Croft’s room about midday. It was all 
in order except a pile of dust scattered behind the bed. 
It looked like the dust that collects in places that are 
never swept. Yes, I think it must have fallen from the 
tester. There was a quantity of it. I did not touch any- 
thing. I did not notice what was on the table or wash- 
stand. Mother found a heap of broken glass under Mrs. 
Croft’s bedroom window. It looked like the apothecary’s 
glass measure. It had figures and lines on the broken 
pieces. I did not smell it; no one did that I know of. 
Mr. Croft left the house that night and staid at the hotel. 
He came back for a little while next morning. I heard 
him scolding Amy for burning up one of his books with 
the trash. She said it was old and ragged, and, finding it 
on the floor, she burnt it up with the litter of papers he 
used to scatter under his writing-table. Yes, I think I 
would know the book again. I saw it several times lying 
open on his table. It was in a strange language. Yes, 
that is the same book, or one exactly like it. The one I 


314 


ARRAIGNED, 


saw had only part of a back on it just as that has. It 
looks the same anyway. No, Mr. Croft never came back 
to us. He wrote mother where to send his things. She 
sent them all. We never heard of Amy afterward. Yes, 
I saw Mrs. Croft buried. No, the coffin was not opened 
in the cemetery, nor at the grave. I did see the body 
after it was in the coffin before it left the house. It looked 
natural. It looked like some one asleep. It was cold 
and stiff. Yes, my mother and sister are both dead. 
That is all I know.” 

Miss Lock was then dismissed, and another stranger, a 
man, placed on the stand. His evidence was as follows : 

“My name is Ormond Louis Cathcart. I am a Cath- 
olic priest. ” 

At this there was a general stir in the court-room. All 
eyes bent forward eagerly to scan the spare, tall figure of a 
man past middle age, with a clear, bold eye, a quiet, 
patient face, and the look of a man who feared nothing 
human. The prisoner shifted his posture just a little, and, 
if possible, appeared less concerned than before. His 
upper lip seemed to curve a little scornfully as he cast his 
eye around the awakened audience, who looked at the 
priest as if he were a supernatural agent in the drama. 


FATHER LOUIS' STORY. 


315 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

FATHER LOUIS' STORY, 

A long black coat (that fitted loosely over a black vest 
buttoned close up to the throat, where a narrow band of 
white linen showed) and black trousers gave something of 
severity to the aspect of the priest, Ormond Cathcart. 
His large head sat well upon his long, muscular neck and 
solid shoulders. Hair of a light brown, sprinkled with 
gray, was brushed back from a wide, open forehead, and 
hung rather low over the collar of his coat in two curls 
that seemed to arrange themselves naturally. The clean- 
shaven face was strongly molded, but gentle; there was 
great power of will and concentration in the countenance. 
His eyes were deep-set and thoughtful ; they seemed to 
look inward more than outward. He had all the appear- 
ance of a student and a gentleman. 

Mr. Craig had put the question as to his name and pro- 
fession, and now added : 

"‘Mr. Ormond Louis Cathcart, will you proceed to 
make a plain and uninterrogated statement of your testi- 
mony before the jury ?'" 

The priest turned himself promptly till he faced the 
jury squarely. He spoke as follows : 

“I have been a resident of Galveston over twenty-five 


3i6 father louis^ story, 

years ; I have charge of a small church, composed mostly 
of Germans ; I am called by the Catholics, and most of 
the Protestants, Father Louis. About nine months ago I 
was occupied as usual very late at night in my library, 
which is also my laboratory, in which I recreate myself 
with scientific experiments when not too much pressed 
with my parochial duties. It must have been close on to 
midnight when I heard a rap at the door of my house. 
Expecting that it might be a sick call, I went to the door, 
and found there a perfect stranger, who said : 

Father Louis, I have come to you on a matter of 
great importance — can I speak to you alone for an hour?' 

bade him enter the library, and, while I finished an 
operation over a spirit lamp, asked him to state his busi- 
ness. He said he would wait for my undivided attention. 
I was struck by the dignity of his voice and manner in 
making this reply, and at once put out the lamp and left 
my apparatus. I had paid little attention to his appear- 
ance at first ; I now noticed that he was a man of uncom- 
mon height, and great majesty of countenance. I saw at 
once that he was an Indian. He gave me a brief outline 
of his history, from the time he commenced life as the ap- 
prentice in a drug store to that moment, when he enjoyed 
quite a reputation for medical skill as a quack doctor. I 
knew of him by reputation. He was called simply 
‘Uriel.' Some prefixed the title of doctor to this quaint 
name, but he was generally mentioned as ‘Uriel, the 
Indian.' He was much esteemed for his benevolence, as 


FATHER LOUIS^ STORY. 


3’7 


well SIS for his art. I felt glad to know him personally, 
and at once dismissed my preoccupation, giving him the 
closest attention. He held a sealed packet in his hands. 
He began to speak in a slow, mellow, and impressive 
voice, using good but very simple and forcible English. 
As well as I can recall them, and they are not easily for- 
gotten, his words were : 

“‘Father, I think I am going to die very soon. I 
have a disease of the heart, and my symptoms have 
of late admonished me to “set my house in order." 
I see your eye light, but I have not come to you 
for confession, nor any of the sacred rites it is your 
office to dispense; not that I despise your religion — 
on the contrary, it is the best form of doctrine that 
I know of at all, and does more good in the world than 
any other; but I have my own ideas about this and the 
future life, and I need no one to stand between me 
and my Maker. This will not alter your interest in what 
I am about to say. For almost seventeen years I have 
been the custodian of a strange and solemn secret, and a 
heavy trust. I feel that God will call me from my place 
before the issue comes in which my testimony will be 
needed for the protection of the innocent and the punish- 
ment of a great crime. That issue is sure to come; 
I must leave a record of what will stand in my stead when 
jqstice claims her due." 

“ He then opened the sealed package, and took from it 
the curious old volume which lies there before Mr. Craig, 


FATHER LOUIS^ STORY. 


318 

and a closely written MS. The MS. he read slowly 
and carefully aloud to me. After which he said : 

***This is substantially and circumstantially all that 
I know concerning the horrid outrage perpetrated by 
the man herein named, Mathew Croft, upon the woman 
herein named, Rachel Croft. Every word of this deposi- 
tion has been written by my own hand, and to the truth 
of every word contained in this writing I swear, here on 
my knees before Almighty God, and I call you, the priest 
of the church, to witness my oath. * 

“Thus speaking, he had gone down before me upon 
his knees, and, with his right hand and his majestic 
face upraised toward heaven, he said ; 

“‘May God, my Creator and Judge, deal with me 
according to the truth or the falsity of what I have set 
down on this paper, to be hereafter used for the protection 
of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty. And 
this I swear to, knowing that the moment is near at hand 
when I shall be called to my own account of deed* done 
in the body.^ 

“After this solemn oath he returned to his seat, and, 
placing both the book and the MS. in my hands, said : 

“‘To you I confide these until such time as Rachel 
Croft, or her child, who is called, for the reasons herein 
given. Faith Hilary, shall demand them of you to be pro- 
duced as evidence against the man Mathew Croft, at 
whose hands she will one day demand restitution of her 
property for the sake of her child, and upon whose 


FATHER LOUIS' STORY. 


319 


guilt toward herself she will invoke the punishment of the 
law. Until such time I rely upon your honor as a gentle- 
man to respect my confidence, and the will of the un- 
happy woman who has decreed my silence for all these 
years. Should you find yourself near death before the 
arrival of that period, you will, as I have done, confide in 
trust, to another as worthy of your confidence as you 
are of mine, all that is now committed to your charge, 
with any further testimony that Providence may cast in 
your way. * 

** Little more passed between us — nothing more relat- 
ing to this case. The old Indian left my house, and the 
next day, when I went into his neighborhood for the pur- 
pose of making some inquiries about his life and charac- 
ter, I heard that he was dead. I called at the house, and 
was received by the woman Rachel, who was called by the 
name of Uriel’s reputed niece. She reported that her 
daughter had discovered the old man sitting at the table 
in his bedroom, with his lamp still burning, and an 
uncompleted letter open before him. A few daj’s after 
this I learned that the woman had left her daughter in the 
charge of the old negro nurse, Amy, and gone away. 
Subsequently the girl and her nurse were, as I learned, by 
Rachel’s orders removed to this place in care of Mathew 
Croft, the prisoner at the bar. Assuring myself of this 
fact, I believed it my duty to await quietly the course of 
events. About one month ago I received this letter from 
Rachel Croft." 


320 


FATHER LOUIS' STORY. 


Father Louis then produced and read aloud the fol- 
lowing : 

“Reverend Sir : — ^You will remember that I told you of an un- 
finished letter found under the hand of my dead friend and the 
saviour of my life, Uriel, the Indian. The contents of that letter in- 
formed me that if I should ever have the desire to use the materials 
he had so carefully collected against one Mathew Croft, I would find 
them in your possession, or that of some one to whom you would 
consign them at your death. These materials I now demand of you, 
and also that you shall appear to attest the validity of them in open 
court when summoned. Your obliged servant, 

“ Rachel Croft.’' 

Father Louis went on to say : 

“This letter was delivered into my hands by a gentle- 
man now present in this house, and upon the summons 
of the court I am here to testify.” 

Mr. Craig then rose to his feet in front of the witness- 
stand, and said : 

“ Have you anything further to relate in connection 
with the trust confided to you by the Indian ?” 

“Yes; I deemed it my duty and my privilege, after 
carefully examining the written testimony given into my 
hands by the Indian, to make certain investigations which 
would enlighten me with regard to the agency which the 
singular old volume filled in the dark tragedy which, ac- 
cording to the Indian’s representation, had been enacted. 
Fortunately, my own scholarship was sufficiently extensive 
to enable me to do this without the aid of a third party.” 

Father Louis here reached out his hand, and Mr. Craig 
placed in it the aged and discolored remains of a once 


FATHER LOUIS* STORY’. 


321 


large volume. Only a portion of it had survived the 
ravages of time and students. Father Louis went on : 

“This volume is a curious disquisition in Persian upon 
certain arts known and practiced in the East by Hakims 
and jMagians. A strange enough blending of science and 
superstition, which under the more potent alchemy of the 
learned science of our time easily dissolves, and the tiny 
particles of truth appear concrete and whole amid the 
dead ^shes of the old superstitions. Among other fables 
and stories related in these pages, is one that appears near 
the last portion of the leaves that remain together. It 
tells of a young man who, under the arts of a certain El 
Hakim of Ispahan, was put to death by means of a drug 
distilled from strange desert plants. But in order that he 
might not bear the stings which his conscience would 
inflict for selling poison for murderous purposes, the 
Hakim delivered to the murderer a liquid, which he was 
instructed to administer only after having by other medica- 
ments reduced the victim to so low a state of health that 
the drug would produce a condition of atrophy so pro- 
found and prolonged as to have all the appearance of 
death, but in reality admit of the patient’s resuscitation. 
The narrative states that only upon a body already much 
depleted and weakened will such an effect be produced. 
A high state of vitality would inevitably resist the power 
of the drug so as to render its action only partial ; but 
when compleie, no traces of poison could be ever after 
discovered in the body if death ensued. 


322 


FATHER LOUIS* STORY. 


‘ ‘ Note the phrase — i/ death ensued. The tale goes on 
to state that the prescription was followed, and to all 
appearances the man died and was buried. The Hakim 
got his fee for the deed, and subsequently offered the 
friends of the deceased to bring him to life by a miracle, 
in consideration of a certain large sum of money if he 
should succeed. This offer was taken — the dead was 
raised. Here the narrative is broken off, for the con- 
cluding pages of the volume are missing, and have 
been missing for ages, if one may judge by the appear- 
ance of the stubs of leaves left still in the old, disfigured 
binding. ” 

Here Father Louis paused, and, lifting his large, calm, 
sad eyes from the volume, cast them slowly round upon 
the spectators, and, lastly, let them rest upon the stony 
face of the prisoner. He then added, solemnly : 

‘ ‘ The unavoidable inference is that the man who em- 
ployed the use of this drug, according to the instructions 
obtained from this volume, knew that his victim would be 
buried alive . " 

A shudder seemed simultaneously to shake every man 
in the court-room. The prisoner alone showed no sign 
of disturbance at this hideous suggestion. 

After the silence that followed his last words. Father 
Louis continued : 

'‘But the narrative herein related gives only a partial 
description of the strange and terrible properties and 
powers of this wonderful essence. Possibly had the reader 


FA THER LOUIS ’ STOR Y. 


333 


of these pages pursued his scientific researches as far as I 
was led to do from the hints thus derived, the ordeal 
of this day would not have been inflicted upon a civilized 
community/" 

Here Father Louis returned the old book to Mr. Craig, 
and was provided with another smaller and less antiquated 
one, from which he read aloud as follows : 

“Although it is quite true that this drug (alluding 
to the essential oil of the desert plants mentioned in 
the Persian volume) does in some cases, and under 
certain conditions of the body, produce syncope or 
trance undistinguishable from death, it is no/ without its 
revealing properties even when the patient has been re- 
stored to life and comparative health. For those who die 
under its effects, a blackened and distorted carcass attests 
almost instantly the instrumentality and nature of the 
poison used. In those who recover, the traces of its 
dread passage through the blood remain in the whitened 
hair, from which the coloring matter has been utterly sub- 
tracted never to be restored ; in the shrunken and parch- 
ment-like skin, to which neither time nor treatment will 
give back the hue of health, and the enfeebled organism 
that performs its functions laboriously and painfully to the 
end of its existence, which may or may not be a long 
one ; and, lastly, in a certain singular and almost inde- 
scribable brilliancy in the eyes, perhaps intensified by the 
absence of color in the lashes and brows, which, like the 
hair, are left of a dead white shade. This brilliancy as- 


324 


FATHER LOUIS^ EXPERIMENT. 


sumes the pale luster that flame makes over alcohol that 
is set on fire. ” 

The priest closed the book, and remained upon the 
witness-stand. 

The MS. of Uriel, the Indian, was then read aloud to 
the court by Mr. Craig. It contained, in a condensed 
form, all the items and circumstances already narrated in 
the chapters concerning the marriage, supposed death, 
resurrection, and subsequent history of Rachel Croft, 
including various details of her life, and that of the girl. 
Faith Hilary. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

FATHER LOUIS' EXPERIMENT. 

Mr. Craig then said to the witness : 

*‘Did you make any discoveries concerning the remark- 
able drug mentioned in the old Persian volume, and 
also in the medical text-book from which you read an 
extract?” 

“I did. I was at considerable pains to procure a small 
quantity of the Arabian oil alluded to, for it is not to be 
found in the shops of ordinary pharmacists. I obtained 
it from the laboratory of a certain medical college in the 
city of New Orleans. It was sold to me at a high price, 


FATHER LOUIS ^ EXPERIMENT. 325 

and only after I had produced proofs of my sacred pro- 
fession and my scientific experiments, which had been 
duly reported in certain journals of medical art/’ 

“What were the uses to which you applied the drug?" 

“I prepared a portion of it in a diluted form, and 
experimented with it upon a delicate greyhound, whose 
life was of great value to me, yet which I was willing to 
sacrifice in order to test the qualities of the drug, and 
add something to the cause of science and humanity." 

“What were the results of your experiment?" 

“First allow me to state that the animal in question 
seemed in all respects a subject of rare fitness for such a 
purpose. Its extremely sensitive organism and delicate 
structure, together with its rearing and habits, made it 
approach as nearly as possible to the human species 
in point of physical sensibility. Its food, drink, and 
lodgings had been the same as my own, almost from its 
birth, and its sagacity was something that bordered on 
intellectuality. 

“It was not without a wrenching of the heart, believe 
me, that I determined on devoting this, the sole com- 
panion of lonely life and arduous labors, to what I con- 
ceived to be my duty to humanity." 

Here Father Louis paused a moment; his face had 
grown paler, and his lip was not so quiet and firm as it 
had been ; but, in a few seconds, he went on : 

“I proceeded to reduce the already delicate phydeal 
condition of my hound, by the use of depleting medicines, 


$26 FATHER LOUIS ^ EXPERIMENT 

until she grew too weak to move from her rug at my 
fireside — until I could no longer bear the dumb, im- 
ploring gaze of her beautiful golden eyes. 

“One morning I gave her to drink, in a small portion 
of milk, the solution I had prepared. I sat by, and kept 
my fingers on the large artery in the throat of the hound, 
counting its pulsations.^ In less than ten minutes, the 
dog, whose head rested on my knee, was fast asleep. 
Slower and feebler beat the blood through the artery, and 
finally the aortic flow entirely ceased. Numbness in all 
the frame was succeeded by chillness, and afterward by a 
gradual stiffening of the limbs. All this took place with- 
out a struggle or a moan. I believed that hound was 
dead ; but, as the time went by, and no distention of the 
face or body, nor blackening of the skin ensued, I began 
to hope for the best. 

“The hound lay in that condition of coma for twenty- 
four hours. I had, immediately after the swoon, removed 
her to a room without fire and filled with fresh air. At 
intervals during that time I applied strong sal-volatile and 
other restorative means. About the last of the twenty-four 
hours I was awakened from my sleep upon a couch near 
the table, where the body of the hound reposed upon a 
mattress, by a low whine, almost like the sick moan of a 
little child. I felt a thrill of joy, and went at once to the 
table. Poor Sappho’s eyes were open, and her tongue 
hung pantingly from her parched jaws. I poured a little 
new milk down her throat, and this I repeated at intervals 


FATHER LOUIS' EXPERIMENT, 


327 


of ten minutes, all the while chafing her with my hands. 
I had already removed her to the fire. As the sunlight 
fell over her, I observed a queer, dull look about the long, 
silky hair on her hide, that had been noted for its glossy 
blackness and beauty, and also that there was a filmy 
whiteness over her brilliant eyes. 

*‘In three days more the once jet-black hound was 
white as snow — not a shade of color left on a spot of her 
hide; and the dark golden hue of her eyes wore the 
strangest aspect imaginable — they looked like globes of 
yellow glass, with fire behind them. In less than a week 
after that, the hound died in a fit.” 

There was silence for a time. Every one present 
seemed to sympathize with the feelings of the calm, pale 
priesit, who had performed no mean act of heroism in 
offering his dumb friend and companion on the altar of 
science. Mr. Craig then said : 

*‘Did you observe the odor of the oil?” 

“I did; there is no mistaking it, and one of its 
strongest properties is its insidiousness. It seems to per- 
meate metal and glass so, that in a century its odor will 
still be distinct, no matter what cleansing process may 
have been applied to the vessel that contained it for even 
a few moments.” 

In saying this. Father Louis took from his pocket a 
little dark wooden casket. He opened it with a pressure 
of his finger, and then took out of it a small glass vial, 
with a glass stopple bound down with kid. 


328 FATHER LOUIS' EXPERIMENT. 

As soon as the kid was removed, a faint, sickening 
aroma reached the olfactories of the nearest bystanders. 
When the stopple was lifted, the whole court-room was 
redolent of an odor like burning cotton. 

Father Louis refitted the stopple, tied up and replaced 
the vial in its casket. He then caused a light spray from 
an atomizer that he had at hand to ascend into the air. 
It was a simple solution of scented ammonia, which, with 
the strong current of fresh air passing through the house, 
soon destroyed the subtle odor of the oil, and left the 
atmosphere sweet and pure, with perhaps the faintest tinge 
of the fragrant evaporation from the atomizer. 

Mr. Craig then produced from a parcel upon the table 
before him a singularly-shaped crystal flask, from which 
he had unwrapped some dark tissue paper, and a small 
piece of surgeon's sponge, also well wrapped in oil silk. 

These he handed to the witness, saying : 

“Would you be able to swear to any peculiar odor 
about these articles.?" 

Father Louis held the sponge, then the vial, to his 
nostrils. Before he made any attempt to answer Mr. 
Craig's question, the judge said : 

“Mr. Cathcart, have you ever seen those articles 
before .?" 

“No; never till this moment," replied the priest, 
promptly. 

“You will now answer Mr. Craig’s question." 

“There is no sort of hesitation in my mind about the 


FATHER LOUIS' EXPERIMENT, 329 

odor of these articles. It is precisely the same, though 
fainter, as that just a little while ago exhaled from the 
essential oil I exhibited to the court.’’ 

The judge ordered the articles passed to the jury, and 
desired their opinion as to the odor they emitted. One of 
the jurymen, whom the smell of the oil had very sensibly 
nauseated, said, as he held the flask to his nose : 

“Pah! I should know that smell if I perceived it in 
the middle of a wilderness a thousand years hence. It is 
the same ^s the oil. ” 

All the twelve jurors, in language less emphatic, con- 
curred in pronouncing it the same as the oil. 

Mr. Craig resumed possession of the flask and sponge, 
and took his seat, in signal that he was through with the 
witness, who was still upon the stand, looking weary with 
his long examination. The judge said ; 

“Does the counsel for^the defense desire to interrogate 
the witness.!^’’ 

Mr. Dale looked up at his client, the prisoner. Mr. 
Croft, without changing his indolent posture, leaning back 
in his chair, with one hand supporting his head, shook 
his head negatively at Mr. Dale, who declined to put any 
question to the witness. 

Father Louis then retired from the stand. 

His place was immediately taken by an old man with a 
white beard that flowed down over his chest, and white 
hair that curled around his forehead, and his face was 
dark as a Moor s. 


330 


FATHER LOUIS' EXPERIMENT 


He spoke very broken English. He testified that he 
was a chemist in the city of Puebla; that, a few weeks 
prior to the dates named as the period of Mr. Croft's 
settlement in Galveston, he was standing one day at the 
counter of a large drug store in New Orleans, where he 
happened to be at the time on business ; that he saw a 
man come in, and heard him ask the druggist for a certain 
oil, which he knew to be an imported drug that was never 
manufactured in this country; that the man supplemented 
his demand by stating, before the druggist replied, that he 
wanted it for the purpose of making some curious experi- 
ment in chemistry, of which he said he was professor in 
one of the Western cities. The druggist did not have the 
drug, and the Mexican told the stranger that he could 
easily procure it in Puebla. The stranger ordered a small 
quantity, which he said he would pay any price for when 
delivered. He named a certain importing firm in Galves- 
ton as the place at which the package was to be deposited, 
simply addressed “M. C.," and not labeled as to its 
contents. 

The Mexican stated that, by the hands of a trading sea 
captain, he had sent the package according to directions, 
and been promptly paid by the merchant to whom it was 
delivered. 

He had never heard anything more of the stranger, the 
professor of chemistry, but had recognized Mathew Croft 
to be the same man who ordered the oil from him the 
moment he set eyes on the prisoner. 


FATHER LOUIS' EXPERIMENT. 331 

This testimony was verified by a clerk belonging to the 
importing firm through which the package from the 
Pueblan chemist had been duly conveyed to the prisoner 
at the bar, whom the clerk declared to be the man, 
Mathew Croft, who claimed the package marked “M. C.," 
for which he had previously deposited a sum of money, 
to be paid whenever such a package should be delivered. 
The clerk furthermore asserted that Mr. Croft had several 
times called to inquire after the expected package. 

The Mejf^can was asked if he could identify the vessel 
that contained the oil shipped to “ M. C.'' in Galveston. 
He said he could easily do, so, as it was a crystal flask of 
curious shape, with the figure of a rose blown into the 
glass on one side. It had formerly contained oil of roses. 
The flask which Mr. Craig had in his hand exactly an- 
swered the description given by the chemist. 

This witness was dismissed after a negative sign from 
Mr. Dale declining to catechise him. 

An anxious silence now fell upon the audience. The 
fatal testimony seemed to be closing slowly and surely 
about the accused. He alone showed no sign of trouble 
or apprehension. His face was calm as a mask, his 
attitude rather languid. He seemed to behold the scene 
with a supreme indiflfereuce. This affected the jurors 
variously. To some it was an indication of hardened 
villainy; to others, of a consummate art in feigning; and 
to a few, of conscious innocence. 

The attention of the court was now arrested by the 


332 


RACHEL'S TESTIMONY. 


appearance of a creature that seemed to be the galvanized 
corpse of a woman, who glided noiselessly and phantom- 
like, in long, black garments, to the witness-stand. 

A chill of vague and painful horror crept to the very 
marrow of the assemblage. 

They shuddered as though they looked on one newly 
risen from the dead. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Rachel’s testimony. 

From the corpse-like face of the mute W’itness not an 
eye could stir ; a horrid fascination held the gaze suspended 
on that seemingly inanimate visage that bore a resemblance 
to a statue, in terra cotta, with hair, eyebrows and lashes 
of a dead whiteness, and from whose rigid sockets a pair 
of blazing black orbs shone, and glittered, and pierced 
with a terrible brightness. This miraculous face might 
have scared the wits from a strong man coming unawares 
upon his sight. It sat motionless upon a motionless body 
that was draped from the throat in a long, black, circular 
cloak. Nothing of the shape was visible ; the hands were 
folded under the cloak. 

As this woman appeared, the face of the prisoner under- 


RACHEL'S TESTIMONY. 


333 


went a change which no one saw, because all looks were 
centered upon the woman. 

A flash of some internal terror came out upon his stolid 
face, as when lightning leaps out from a dull, black cloud ; 
but quickly as the electric vein it retreated to its hiding- 
place, and, when the audience once more examined his 
countenance, it was as unrevealing and self-possessed as 
before. The awful woman there before him on the wit- 
ness-stand seemed to be no concern of his. 

“What is your name?"’ asked Mr. Craig of the mummy- 
like woman. 

“Rachel Croft nee Logan.” 

“Rachel Croft, is the prisoner at the bar known to 
you ?” 

‘ ‘ Mathew Croft, the prisoner at the bar, is my husband, 
and the father of my child.” 

These responses fell automatically from the hueless lips 
that scarcely seemed to move in making their clear, me- 
tallic utterances. 

“Will you give the court a plain and concise statement 
of your history, so far as it includes that of the prisoner?” 

She instantly, and in the most mechanical manner pos- 
sible, proceeded to relate, with great clearness, the whole 
of the incidents as set down in the earlier chapters of this 
story up to the moment when she fell asleep after par- 
taking of the draught prepared and administered by her 
husband. She then paused for a moment, and something 
like abhorrence of making a further revelation passed over 


334 


R ACHE VS TESTIMONY. 


her image-like features. She closed the burning, staring 
eyes for a second, and then resumed : 

“My next conscious experience was of waking in a 
strange room, with two persons standing near me— one of 
these the Indian doctor, Uriel, the other my old mulatto 
nurse, Amy. I was told afterward by the Indian that I 
had just waked from a long sleep. I have not a vivid nor 
systematic recollection of what followed for many months, 
but I became as familiar with the story of my dreadful 
fate, as it is given in the written statement of the Indian, as 
a child with a nursery^ tale. All that is revealed in the In- 
dian’s testimony concerning my purpose to die, or suffer 
any amount of personal anguish, both for myself and my 
child, is perfectly true, and no other torture could have 
wrung confession from me except the one that maddened 
me into frenzied rage against the traitor, rather than ex' 
pose my husband’s crime, who could ignore both my de- 
votion and his crime, in linking his life and my fortune to 
that of the beautiful woman whom he loved even as he 
had loathed meT 

Bitter and violent with dark passions as these words 
were, they were so calmly spoken that only in the fiery 
scintillations of the glittering eyes could their venom be 
detected. 

She then went on to state how she had discovered the 
fact of Mathew Croft's second marriage, and how she had 
hastened to blast its brightness and its promise by present- 
ing herself before the newly-wedded pair. She repeated 


RAC HE vs TESTIMONY. 


335 


the conditions she had made with Mathew Croft, that he 
should receive and treat his daughter and hers as the vir- 
tual mistress of his hous'j, and heiress of his fortune, but 
concealing her real connection with him under such a rep- 
resentation as would best secure her a distinguished posi- 
tion in society, and that Leda should assume the duties of 
chaperon to the young lady. That so long as all of her 
(Rachel's) requirements were faithfully observed and com- 
plied with, she would remain in such profound obscurity 
that not even her child should know of her hiding-place ; 
and that, when Faith Hilary should be safely and happily 
settled in, life, she, the unhappy mother, would be as one 
dead to them all. In the meantime, the stipulations 
placed the household of Lucerne literally under Rachel's 
supervision, by means of the agents whom she established 
there as the instruments by which her will in regard to the 
girl were to be executed faithfully. It was furthermore 
agreed that Mathew Croft should at once make a deed of 
conveyance by which the whole of the property received 
from Rachel, with the accumulated legal interest, be set- 
tled irrevocably upon the girl, '‘Faith Hilary, and her 
heirs forever." 

This was done, and the deed consigned to the hands of 
Rachel Croft. 

At the close of these statements, Mr. Craig said : 

‘ ‘ In the meantime, where was your place of residence V' 

By this time the audience were hanging breathlessly 
upon every word uttered by that terrible and tragic woman, 


336 RACHEDS TESTIMONY. 

who had voluntarily made of herself the engine of retri- 
bution, crushing out all her humanities, and becoming a 
mere machine to work out a purpose at once just and 
vengeful. 

At this question a shadow of some fierce emotion trem- 
bled over the immovable face of Rachel Croft, the witness. 
She answered, more slowly, but not less distinctly than be- 
fore : 

“My place of residence was in the midst of the house- 
hold at Lucerne. I was called Mrs. Foster, the house- 
keeper . " 

When she said these words the glowing rays from her 
wonderful jet irids streamed full upon the face of the 
prisoner. 

Her look seemed to say to him : 

“Fancy, if you can, the hell upon earth to which I con- 
demned myself there.” 

A visible shudder passed over the body of the prisoner, 
but he faced the deadly challenge of those mysterious eyes 
without further sign of emotion. 

“What caused you to force the indictment of which 
this trial is the result : 

“My child’s disappearance, and, as we have every 
reason to believe, death, through the instrumentality of 
the man introduced to her society by Mr. Croft and his 
other wife, and to whose mercy she was abandoned by 
their carelessness or neglect. ” 

“Can you produce the deed made in favor of the 


RACHEtS TESTIMONY. 


337 


girl, Faith Hillary, by Mathew Croft, the prisoner at the 
bar?’' 

can. Here it is.” 

She handed a folded paper to Mr. Craig. It was writ- 
ten in the peculiar hand well known t6 be that of the 
prisoner, and signed by him, duly witnessed. 

The counsel for the defense was now referred to the 
witness. As before, he declined to interrogate. Rachel 
Croft was now dismissed from the stand. 

The counsel for the prosecution remained in their seats, 
awaiting the action of the opposing side. Mr. Dale, the 
attorney for the defense, kept his place, and the jury and 
court wore an expectant air. 

To the great surprise of all present, the prisoner rose to 
his feet, his tall, massive figure, in its elegant attire, tow- 
ering above the heads of the assembly, where he stood on 
the elevated inclosed platform occupied by the criminal on 
the trial. 

A deep flush overspread Mathew Croft’s cold face, as he 
met the upturned gaze of the multitude whom he had so 
often addressed amid the admiring plaudits that his repu- 
tation and eloquence commanded for his oratory. 

He fixed his eyes on the jury. 


338 


MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 

There was not a tremor in the deep-toned voice of the 
prisoner, as he said, folding his white hands before him, 
as was his usual custom when beginning to speak : 

“May it please the court, and gentlemen of the jury, 
I have risen to claim for myself that right which our com- 
mon country grants every citizen accused of a crime, to 
speak in his own defense. Gentlemen of the jury, you 
have listened to the most flawless tissue of criminating 
evidence that it has ever been my misfortune to hear given 
against any person accused of a crime. It may or may 
not be truthful evidence. With that I have no concern, 
since it in no wise relates to myself.’’ 

Here the prisoner made a dramatic pause, letting his 
eyes seek the ground, while all glances turned on him 
with amazement. 

He then resumed : 

“I deny that I am the man to whom that evidence 
refers. I deny any acquaintance with the woman calling 
herself Rachel Croft up to the moment when she appeared 
before me, according to her statement, a week after my 
marriage last fall, and when, for reasons I will hereafter 
explain, I agreed to temporize with what I conceived to be 


MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 


339 


the freak of a mad woman. I call your attention to the 
evidence that I shall immediatfly bring forward to prove 
that at the period named by Rachel Croft and the other 
witnesses examined against one Mathew Croft, I, your 
prisoner, was a resident of Chicago, Illinois, and engaged 
in mercantile pursuits in that city." 

At a sign from the prisoner, Mr. Dale placed a witness 
upon the stand. Mr. Croft proceeded to examine the 
witness. 

*‘What is your name and occupation." 

“My name is Josiah Williams. I am at present a 
traveling agent for a tin manufactory in Detroit. " 

“Where did you reside in the spring of i8 — ?" 

“At Chicago. I was then clerk in the grocery store of 
Acklin & Farmer, street. " 

“Have you any knowledge whatever of the prisoner at 
the bar?" 

“I distinctly have. At the time mentioned, the spring 
of 1 8 — , Mathew Croft, the prisoner at the bar, was the 

proprietor of a clothing store in street, Chicago. I 

frequently bought merchandise of him, and had an inti- 
mate personal acquaintance with him.'' 

“Was he at any time absent from his business in 
Chicago during the year i8 — ?” 

“To my certain knowledge he was not I saw him 
almost daily, always passing his store on my way to my 
place of business, and often stopping to converse with 
him. I often said to him; ‘You were made for better 


340 


MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 


things than selling clothes. ’ I was glad when I found he 
had thrown up merchandise and taken to the law. ” 

“How much longer did he reside in Chicago after 
studying law?” 

“He went away before he began at the bar. I heard 
of his change of business about two years after his re- 
moval from Chicago, in the winter of i8 — 

“Where was he practicing?” 

“At Memphis.” 

“Did you see him after that?” 

“Yes, twice, as I passed through Memphis on my route 
southward, traveling for my house. ” 

Another witness was now introduced. His testimony 
was as follows : 

“My name is George W. Wilson. I am a clerk in a 
dry-goods house in Toronto. I lived for many years in 
Memphis. I knew the prisoner well when I resided there. 
He practiced law in a small way at that time. He often 
transacted business for my employers, Beal & Co., mer- 
chants. I left Memphis before he did, but heard from 
him sometimes after he settled here. He wrote me that a 
windfall in the shape of a legacy from an old aunt had 
enabled him to come South and establish himself at ease 
in his profession in this city. I have heard from him from 
time to time.” 

The witness was cross-examined by Mr. Craig, but no 
discrepancies appeared in his testimony, and he was then 
dismissed. Letters were then shown and examined, which 


MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 


341 


substantiated the evidence given in favor of the prisoner. 
There seemed no shadow of doubt remaining as to a mis- 
taken identity. It was impossible that Mathew Croft, the 
preacher and the husband of Rachel Croft, could be one 
with Mathew Croft, the merchant and lawyer, who was 
clearly proved to have been a man of fair repute, residing 
in distant States during the periods specified as those which 
concerned the crime for which the prisoner was on trial. 

It remained now to ascertain by some test which of the 
two Mathew Crofts the prisoner at the bar really was. 

Mr. Craig rose and requested permission to put a ques- 
tion to the two witnesses for the defense. 

Josiah Williams resumed the stand. 

“Mr. Williams, are you aware of any personal pe- 
culiarity or physical trait by which you could designate 
the person to whom your testimony refers?’" 

“None beyond his general appearance, which seems to 
me sufficiently marked for any man of ordinary percep- 
tions to swear to with confidence. I am here on oath to 
declare that the man in the dock is the identical Mathew 
Croft to whom my testimony refers.” 

Mr. Wilson was again interrogated. He said, with an 
air of sarcastic impatience : 

“Having been intimately and kindly associated with a 
man of Mr. Croft’s uncommon personal abilities and char- 
acteristics for a number of years, it seems a little absurd to 
suppose that I can have the least doubt about his identity, 
or that I should require an ‘ear-mark’ to designate him.” 


MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 


342 

Mr. Wilson retired, and Rachel Croft vas summoned to 
reappear. 

The same question was propounded to her. She asked 
for a pencil and piece of paper. It was given her, and she 
leaned over the table in front of her, and drew something 
upon the blank surface of the paper. This she handed to 
Mr. Craig, with the slowly enunciated words : 

“If the prisoner at the bar is the Mathew Croft con- 
cerning whom my testimony has been given, a mark like 
that will be found upon his right shoulder about three 
inches from where it joins the neck.’' 

All eyes turned toward the prisoner as the witness re- 
tired to the antechamber. 

His face was fairly livid. He shook in every limb. 

The judge said : 

“Mathew Croft, you have heard the testimony just 
given by the chief witness for the prosecution in this trial. 
It is the duty of the court to see that every item of 
evidence be duly weighed, and that the prisoner be well 
and truly tried. Mr. Sheriff, you will proceed at once to 
make the investigation.” 

The prisoner rose, and, with convulsive agitation, pro- 
tested against the indignity to be offered his ‘ ‘ sacred per- 
son. ” 

The judge said, solemnly : 

“Innocence, Mr. Croft, shrinks from no test which the 
sacred majesty of the law demands. Mr. Sheriflf, do your 
duty on the prisoner at the bar. ” 


MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 


343 


A profound hush attended the proceedings. The judge 
held in his hands the slip of paper upon which the 
woman, Rachel Croft, had drawn a curious diagram. At 
length the sheriff exclaimed, in a measured voice : 

*‘May it please the court, I find upon the right shoulder 
of the prisoner, about three inches below the neck, what 
seems to be the scar of marks burnt into the flesh. Within 
a diamond-shaped figure are the letters H. R, No. 1,272 — 
1840.” 

The judge caused the paper that he held to be given to 
the jury. The marks upon the paper corresponded to 
those upon the shoulder of the prisoner. 

One by one the jurymen approached the prisoner, and 
compared the mark on his flesh to the diagram on the 
paper. 

Not a sound succeeded to the stir occasioned by the 
movements of the jury resuming their places, until the 
slight derangement of the prisoner’s toilet had been re- 
paired. 

The countenance of Mathew Croft during this painful 
scene would have baffled the most skillful physiognomist. 
If possible, a more rigid repose than ever had settled 
upon his features — the facial fiber might have been of 
iron, for all emotion one could detect upon those rugged 
lineaments. 

It was the calmness of a desperate creature. Mere 
bravado and callous villainy could never have attained to 
such supereminent control. It was the masterful triumph 


344 


MISTAKEN IDENTITY, 


of intellectual force over the moral and physical man. It 
was the pale, unflinching courage that mind casts like a 
mantle over matter in a moment of supreme danger. 

In the midst of this silence the prosecuting attorney, 
Mr. Craig, rose and faced the jury. Upon a tall, slender 
form sat a fine, well-balanced head, and from a face of 
venerable aspect the hair was thrown carelessly back. His 
features were subdued, and his tones grave and quiet, as 
he said : 

“Gentlemen of the jury, to the evidence given in your 
hearing to-day, and v hich will be ably collated for you by 
his honor, the presiding judge, I have a few words to add. 

“The wrecked and blasted remnant of womanhood 
who stood before you to-day presented a more potent ap- 
peal to your sense of justice than all the invectives that 
eloquence could hurl against the hand that wrought that 
ruin, so piteous and so complete. 

“For the body slain by a murderous blow, or the 
poisoned draught, our laws demand the body of the mur- 
derer as a holocaust to justice. A life for a life, according 
to the grim Hebraic code. 

“But for the murdered heart, the slain hope, the 
violated trust, the desecrated vows, human justice has 
not ventured to appoint an adequate atonement. These 
offenses cry aloud to Heaven for vengeance, and with 
High God must their punishment remain. 

“It is for you, gentlemen, to decide whether Mathew- 
Croft, the prisoner at the bar, is guilty or not guilty of the 


MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 345 

attempted murder charged to his account by the evidence 
laid before you to-da)*. 

‘ ‘ If you shall decide that he is not guilty, it is fair to 
presume that he will be restored to his high and honor- 
able place in this community, while the poor, deserted 
woman who accuses him of so horrid an attempt upon her 
life, and the subsequent appropriation of her property, 
must retire into her childless and desolate obscurity. 

“If you decide that he is guilty, his punishment, under 
the law, is ‘fine and imprisonment,' with, of course, the 
restoration of the ill-gotten gains derived from the devoted 
magninimity of the wife, who chose rather to die in want 
and destitution than expose the crime of the man she 
loved far better than her life. 

“I should not only waste words, but offend your intel. 
ligence, gentlemen of the jury, did I dwell further upon 
the case so fully presented for your judgment. I have 
only to remind you that in your hands rests the future of 
that haggard woman, who stands alone in this wide world, 
called back to it from the very jaws of the grave, and calls 
to you for justice.” 


345 


SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 

It was now the prisoner's turn to be heard in his own 
cause, of which he had assumed the management. 

He was still very composed, but a tremor in his tones 
betrayed the shock his nerves had sustained. He said : 

“Gentlemen, it is trne that an appalling weight has 
been cast into the balance against me by the discovery 
that I bear upon my person a mark answering to the 
description of one drawn by the witness, Rachel Croft. 
It is needless for me to state to you that a bribe of a few 
dollars might easily have secured from the deputy of the 
prison the information which has been made to appear 
against me in this court. For one who had privileged 
access to my cell by day and night, and who as often dis- 
turbed me in the midst of profound, unconscious slumber 
or the gloomy reveries of an unhappy prisoner, nothing 
was simpler than the accidental or premeditated discovery 
of any distinguishing mark upon my person. This, with 
one other suspicious circumstance, seems to me the only 
point worthy to be mentioned in opposition to the clear 
and positive testimony of two intelligent witnesses, who 
have disproved my identity with the Mathew Croft of 
Rachel Croft’s tragedy. I refer, gentlemen, to the fact of 


SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 


347 


my having acceded to the demands of the woman, Rachel 
Croft, in the matter of receiving her daughter into my 
house as my maid. 

“Let it be remembered that I came to this community 
a stranger, ftom that section most obnoxious to the senti- 
ments of this. My speech, manners, opinions, and habits 
all attested too plainly that I was a Northener, even had I 
desired to conceal the fact, which I candidly declare I did 
not wish to do. I brought with me no credentials, save 
my professional ability. Despite a bitter opposition, I 
won for myself a place of distinction at this bar, and 
finally had the happiness of marrying a woman unsur- 
passed for her beauty and social consequence in this or 
any State in the Union. 

“Scarcely were these nuptials consummated, when a 
mad woman, or a fiend with libelous intent, appears upon 
the scene, and urges the monstrous charges and claims 
that have this day been published in this house, having 
first been circulated for weeks through the press, to the 
vital prejudice of the prisoner whom they attacked. Had 
I been one of this people, instead of the alien adventurer 
upon whom all looked with coldness and disaffection, if 
not absolute suspicion, because of his birthplace and 
principles, I might boldly have flung the viper from me, 
and defied her to do her worst, relying upon my estab- 
lished position in your midst and my claim upon the 
unprejudiced sympathy of my judges. 

“But, alas! gentlemen, ‘a stranger in a strange land’ 


348 SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 

hath need of sober caution as to where he sets his ad- 
vancing foot. My -successes had brought me, perhaps, a 
few cold admirers, but no friends on whose adherence I 
could count through good and evil report.’ I had com- 
mitted the unpardonable sin of acquiring fortune and 
popularity by my talent, despite the odium that attached 
to me as an interloper. And I crowned this offense by 
marrying a queen of society, and the heiress of one of the 
oldest names and wealthiest families in the South. 

“Was it forme, under these precarious circumstances, 
to incur a public scandal that would bring the blush of 
shame to my young bride’s cheek, and raise the howl of a 
prejudiced community against me, when, by secret con- 
cessions that would injure no one, but in reality benefit 
an innocent and beautiful young creature at the cost of a 
few paltry thousands subtracted from my honestly acquired 
fortune, I could avoid that expose? 

“Say, gentlemen, which of you would have hesitated to 
act as I acted, had you been placed as I was placed.? 
Drop by drop I would have spilled my life-blood, rather 
than that the noble woman, whose honor and fair fame 
were mine to protect, should have suffered one such pang 
as was threatened her young life by the malice or the 
madness of the woman calling herself Rachel Croft. 

“Which one oi you, gentlemen of the jury, would have 
so far forgotten the duties of chivalry and the tenderness 
of manhood, as to let the heart of a nobly-born, delicately- 
nurtured orphan girl, still mourning over the new-made 


SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 


349 


grave of her mother, be wrenched and bruised by the 
public disgrace of so scandalous a trial as this has been, 
even if your fortunes, and your lives, had been exacted to 
shield her from it? 

“But I shame your innate manhood, and my own, by 
making a question of what any true man's duty must be 
under such an alternative. It has been my misfortune to 
have sacrificed my natural indignation, and to have en- 
meshed myself with false appearances — all in vain. 

“By one of those unhappy chances which no degree 
of human prudence could have obviated, the girl over 
whom I assumed the guardianship has been drowned, in 
company with one of my wife's dearest relatives. In this 
untoward accident have I been made to pay the penalty 
of this ignominious arrest, imprisonment, and trial. 

“When you, gentlemen, shall have proclaimed me 
innocent, as I feel sure that you will, I shall still have to 
suflfer tortures that not all the verdicts of all the juries of 
the earth can avert from my heart and my home. 

“Who or what can save me from the drooping, shame- 
laden head of my noble bride? Who or what can turn 
from my soul the bitter anguish of her woeful eyes? Who 
or what shall stand between my sight and the shadowy 
forms of her dead parents, whom I loved, and by whom I 
was beloved and trusted, when they shall haunt me with 
reproachful faces for their darling's misery? 

“Pardon me, my fellow-men and my judges, if I entreat 
you to excuse me from further discussion upon such 


350 


SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 


minor points as may still remain obscure. I feel that I 
can safely intrust my cause to your hands as it is. What- 
ever differences of birth and education may divide us on 
other questions, we are the sons of one mother, gentle- 
men, and her name is Honor; and her dearest behest to us 
is to cherish and keep spotless the character of woman. " 

The very air seemed to tremble around the stalwart 
forms and rugged faces of the twelve, upon whose heart- 
chords the speaker’s tones had played so cunningly. 

With a movement of indescribable dignity, the prisoner 
resumed his seat. His pale face wore a look of confident 
calm, and his eyes fixed themselves steadfastly upon the 
judge, who now addressed himself to the jury. With 
clear, incisive tones, and a masterly summing up of the 
evidence, he charged the jury with the prisoner’s fate. 

The powerful appeal which Mr. Croft had just made to 
the fair, unbiased judgment of his cause, and his touching 
allusion to the fact of his isolated position in a com- 
munity whose feelings and principles on all social and 
political subjects were naturally averse to his own, had 
not been lost on the judge, who contented himself with 
giving the bare facts in the testimony to the consideration 
of the jury, without any word of comment more than was 
demanded ex officio. 

In conclusion, he said : 

"‘This is the whole of the evidence on the part of the 
prosecution and on the part of the prisoner. On the part 


SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 351 

of the prosecution, it is almost entirely circumstantial 
(the only eye-witness being of no value in point of law), 
yet so conclusive as to seem incontrovertible. On the 
part of the prisoner, the testimony is equally conclusive, 
and more direct, which establishes the fact of mistaken 
identity. 

“It has been demonstrated that the witnesses for the 
defense were unable to mention any personal peculiarity, 
or designating mark, that could satisfy the court of their 
certain acquaintance with the prisoner; while, on the 
other hand, the chief witness for the prosecution has been 
able to certify her knowledge of the prisoner by a most 
unmistakable test. 

“It cannot be disputed that it is quite possible for the 
witness, Rachel Croft, to have obtained surreptitious in- 
formation from the turnkey of the prison concerning the 
singular mark upon the right shoulder of the prisoner, 
and it is for you to decide the plausibility of this idea, 
taking into consideration all that has been proven and not 
proven in your hearing, always giving the accused the 
benefit of a reasonable doubt. 

“ It is for you to form your opinions on the fate of the 
prisoner apart from all extraneous suggestions, according 
to the best of your judgment and upon your conscience, 
and as you shall find out the truth, so you will pronounce 
your verdict. ” ^ 

The jury retired from the court-room, and for the space 
of several minutes a solemn quiet pervaded the crowd. 


352 


SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 


A man was seen to ascend the rostrum upon which the 
judge sat, and to converse in a low tone with the dignified 
official. Some papers were examined between them, and 
an earnest conversation took place, after which the man 
withdrew, and stood upon the lowest step of the rostrum 
beside the sheriff. 

Meanwhile the prisoner sat very still, with his face bowed 
on his hand. 

Within the space of half an hour the solid tramp of 
many feet announced the return of the jury, who marched 
slowly up the long aisle back to their seats. The fore- 
man, a dark, serious, earnest-looking man, handed the 
verdict to the clerk. 

They had found the prisoner Guilty!” 

******* 

The prisoner had lifted his head, and confronted the 
court with an unflinching calmness. 

Save for a spasmodic tightening of the lines about his 
mouth, his face expressed no emotion when he heard the 
terrible word which consigned his character to public 
infamy, and his body to a convict’s cell for any period 
of time within a space of thirty years that his judge might 
decree. 

In that instant he beheld the fair fabric that he had 
builded among men fall in blackened ruins to its founda- 
tion stone. Fame, Wealth, Love — the magic trio that 
circle round the goal of each heart s hope, and each of 
whose wands had touched his life — seemed in that moment 


SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 


353 


to mock at him with their cruel laughter as they waved 
him a final adieu. In their place rose other three, ghastly 
shapes, that hastened toward him with gibbering smiles 
and outstretched arms open to embrace him — Disgrace, 
Poverty, and Despair were their names. 

Across this dread, phantasmal picture he heard, as if 
from far away, the voice of the law's vice-regent pro- 
nouncing his sentence : 

‘ ‘ Mathew Croft, the offense of which you now stand 
convicted, is — next to those which immediately affect the 
State, the Government, and the Constitution of our country 
— of the blackest dye that man can commit; for, of all 
felonies, murder is the most horrible, and of all murders, 
poisoning is the most detestable. Poisoning is a secret 
art, against which there are no means of preserving or 
defending a man’s life ; and as far as there can be different 
degrees in crimes of the same nature, yours surpasses all 
that have ever gone before it. The manner in which this 
dark deed was transacted, and the person on whom it was 
committed, much enhance your guilt. It was executed 
under pretext of the tendercst devotion to the most sacred 
of trusts, and upon the being who, of all the world, 
should have been shielded with your own life from harm 
or peril. 

‘'So far 2iS you are concerned, your murderous act was 
a complete act; and, to add to its horror, you accepted 
the frightful contingency of interring alive the faithful, 
loving wife, whose only crime had been loving you too 


354 SENTENCED AMD RECLAIMED. 

well, and to whose love you owed the fortune which you 
craved. Probably the greatness of this fortune caused the 
greatness of your offense ; and I am fully satisfied, upon 
the evidence given against you, that avarice was your 
motive, aud hypocrisy afforded you the means of com- 
mitting the dark deed. I think it impossible to find any, 
even of the meanest capacity, among the numerous 
audience that stand around you, who can entertain a 
doubt of your guilt. 

“The punishment which your crime deserves — which 
the public has a right to demand, and which I must 
inflict upon you — is less speedy but more ignominious 
than death. 

“The sentence which I now pronounce upon you is, 
that you be taken hence to the place allotted for your 
confinement by the laws of the State, and that you be 
subject to imprisonment and hard labor among the com- 
mon convicts of the State Prison for the space of thirty 
} ears. That the fortune of sixty thousand dollars which 
you received from Rachel, your wife, be restored unto her, 
with the accumulation of legal interest, and that the rest 
and residue of your possessions be confiscate to the State 
under whose laws you are judged and punished ; and may 
God be merciful, and bless to you this grievous chastise- 
ment for your most grievous offense.” 

A dead hush succeeded and endured for the space of a 
minute. 

The prisoner might have been turned to stone for all 


SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 


355 


sign of life that his face or form emitted. This silence 
was now broken by the sound of a strange voice, that rang 
loud and clear through the hall of justice : 

“May it please the court, I, Mathew Olden, a police 
official of the State of Pennsylvania, am here with official 
orders to arrest one James Cochrane, alias William Jones, 
alias Mathew Croft, an escaped convict from the State 
Prison in the year i8 — , under sentence for life, for the 
crime of burglary and homicide. The said James Coch- 
rane, alias William Jones, alias Mathew Croft, will be 
found to have a brand upon his right shoulder, inflicted 
according to law upon all convicts sentenced for life. ” 

The judge alone of all present seemed prepared for 
this denouement to the dismal drama. In a quiet tone, 
he said : 

“Mr. Sheriff, let your prisoner be delivered into the 
hands of the State official of Pennsylvania. Under the 
law, the greater punishment includes the less, and the 
former sentence takes precedence over the latter.'" 

A low, deep sound, like a groan wrenched from the 
depths of some mortal agony, escaped from the breast of 
the prisoner as the hand of the chief of police closed 
upon his branded shoulder. 


356 


LEVA’S HOST, 


CHAPTER XL. 
leda’s host. 

It is now almost a month since the exciting incidents 
of the trial and imprisonment of the criminal, Mathew 
Croft. 

Gossip has expended herself (beg pardon if the fem- 
inine pronoun is incorrect) upon the details of the dark 
story of his former and latter crimes, and vituperation has 
done its worst with the name of the convict. 

As to the strange, silent woman, Rachel Croft, whose 
dismal form has flitted like some “perturbed spirit" 
through this history, who rose, shadow-like, from her 
hiding-place, to confront the author of her woes at the 
bar of justice, and then was seen no more, not a trace has 
been discovered since the moment she disappeared from 
the witness-stand. 

Rumor declares that “Mr. Craig, the prosecuting attor- 
ney, must know of her whereabouts, since no one else 
knwvs," and, as this seems to be quite as good a reason as 
rumor generally has for her opinions, we shall accept and 
pass it by. 

A few days after the trial, Gordon Warren was able to be 
removed from Lucerne to his own home. At his earnest 


LEDA^S HOST. 


357 


solicitation, Miss Draper consented to remain for the pres- 
ent with Leda. 

But the terrible fate that Leda had invoked when she 
laid her life upon the altar of Mammon overtook her 
almost immediately after Gordon Warren and his mother 
quitted the roof that sheltered her. 

The next day “a writ of ejectment" from the Lucerne 
property, now the possession of Mrs. Croft, was served 
upon the once haughty and beautiful mistress of Lucerne. 

She was granted the space of one week to make her 
arrangements for departure from the threshold of her an- 
cestral home. 

Penniless, homeless, nameless, and almost friendless, 
this proud, vain, heartless woman was to face the world, 
whose smiles she had so long coquetted with, for whose 
frowns she had no courage. 

Not one of all the bright circle that had once encom- 
passed her with adulation came near the lone woman, 
who was neither maid, widow, nor wife, but a wrecked 
existence, standing solitary in the midst of the chaos she 
had created around herself by the cold-blooded barter of 
her womanhood for worldly gains. 

The moment that Gordon Warren heard of this last 
stroke of Leda’s fell destiny, he sent his mother to bring 
her to their modest home as a guest. 

Miss Draper returned to her friends in New England, 
and, after this adjustment of affairs, the days glided on for 
a month. 


358 


LEDA’S HOST. 


Leda had accepted the cordial invitation of the War- 
rens to bring her faithful Roxana to the asylum which 
they had offered, as peasants might open their doors to a 
sovereign. 

The most deferential kindness from mother and son 
characterized the hospitality which these simple folk ex- 
tended to the unfortunate Leda. 

Naturally she remained in severe retirement during the 
first weeks of her sojourn at the cottage, never leaving her 
own room, unless to join her host and hostess for half an 
hour on the dusky twilit porch. 

During this period the young lawyer was too feeble for 
the regular labors of his profession, nevertheless he spent 
almost the whole of each day in his office, overlooking 
such papers as related to his connection with his disgraced 
partner, Mathew Croft, and transacting any pressing busi- 
ness. 

He had a twofold object in thus absenting himself so 
continuously from his home — a delicate regard for what 
the neighbors might say if he bestowed much of his pres- 
ence upon the house inhabited by the beautiful unfor- 
tunate, and also a mistrust of Leda s own conduct and 
feelings toward him. 

The more he reflected upon the painful scene that had 
transpired between them the evening before her final and 
public humiliation the more he shrank from any associa- 
tion with her, beyond what courteous hospitality and con- 
siderate kindness demanded of him. 


LEDA'S HOST, 


359 


It became his painful duty to examine into his former 
partner s connection with the estate of Leda's mother, and 
to discover how shamefully it had been embezzled by the 
arts of the unscrupulous villain to whose management it 
had been intrusted. But, by dint of an honorable decep- 
tion, he was able to make it appear that Leda was the pos- 
sessor of a few thousands, which were placed at her credit 
in the bank of the State. 

It is needless to inform the reader that this deposit was 
made from the private fortune, small as it was, of the self- 
appointed guardian of her interests, Gordon Warren. 

When he had finally effected this arrangement, he de- 
sired his mother to request their guest to be brought to 
him for a moment into the little library. 

Placing in Leda’s hand a paper, he said : 

“In this document you will find, my friend, a state- 
ment of the trifling remnant which remains of your dear 
mother’s estate, and which has been placed at your dis- 
posal in a bank deposit subject to your instructions. I 
need not add that I have been happy to render you this 
small service, nor that in all things I am ready to aid and 
care for you as if you were my own dear sister.” 

Light and swift as the accentuation on the last word 
was, it caused Leda’s cheek to glow hotly ; but her eyes 
were sad and supplicating when she raised them from the 
paper which Warren had given her, to let them rest full 
upon his noble face. 

She seemed hardly able to speak. Her lips murmured 


360 


lEDA^S HOST. 


a low, broken “Thank you. How good you are to me !” 

A few days went by after this before Leda made any 
further allusion to what had taken place. 

One evening, after their early and simple tea, the good 
Dame Warren left her son to finish his cigar on the porch 
alone with their sad, fair guest, who sat apart under the 
drooping cluster of a lamarque rose that covered one end 
of the little piazza. 

Her face shone white as an angel's, and almost as beau- 
tiful, against the dense blackness of her garments. One 
of the pure pale roses gleamed among the rich dark 
masses of her braided hair, and the luster of her splendid 
eyes glowed through the dim starlight. Warren lounged 
on the steps a little way from her feet, his cigar-end blink- 
ing like a glow-worm in the dark, and its warm fumes 
mingling sweetly with the fragrance of the dewy roses. 
He was not in the least conscious of how well his hand- 
some figure was displayed in the careless reclining pose he 
had assumed for comfort, not becomingness. 

His head rested against the wooden column , of the 
porch, his face was upturned to the solemn stars that lit it 
palely, and the dark, glossy hair fell away in silky curls 
from his clear, calm brow. 

“Where are your thoughts all this while.? I do not 
think you have even breathed for half an hour," said 
Leda, who had not taken her eyes from the prone form of 
the young athlete for some time. 

He puffed out a mouthful of smoke before he answered. 


LEDA^S HOST. 


361 


could not tell you just where my thoughts were, be- 
cause they were far afloat in space,” he sighed, ever so 
softly, as he paused, but she heard it, and said : 

^‘They were sad thoughts, it seems.” 

“Yes; very, very sad! They had traveled, as they 
often do, in search of the whitest soul that ever tenanted 
a mortal frame. Poor little Faith's image haunts me by 
day, and visits my dreams at night. The child seems to 
be calling me to her somew'here in the vast unknown 
whither she has vanished. I could almost believe that 
she is still in the flesh, so strangely do I feel about her 
sometimes. ” 

“That is sheer nonsense. It has been months since 
they disappeared, and only the ocean could have kept 
Julian Vernois from his old haunts for that space of time. 
Poor things I It was and it is so dreadful to lose them sol” 

Warren made no reply, but smoked on silently till Leda 
said : 

“How I envy you that dilicious, soothing accompani- 
ment to your solitary m usings, or solace for your sad 
ones. ” 

“What?” 

“Your cigar.” 

“Have one?” 

“Oh, no; but I would like it. I think sometimes I 
shall go mad with my dreary thoughts, and, at such times, 
I fancy it would ease me to lie and smoke as you are 
doing. ” 


362 


LEDA'S HOST, 


Her tone was infinitely pathetic; it touched Warren 
keenly in his tender, manly soul, for he knew how dreary 
and bitter indeed must be her thoughts very often. He 
tried to speak cheerily to brighten her. 

“Ah, yes, I can imagine; but then there are other 
things you can do for diversion which I cannot. 1 fre- 
quently think what an endless source of amusement you 
women must find in your pretty needle-work.'" 

“Perhaps; but I am not blessed with any of those en- 
gaging accomplishments. Mamma would never let me 
learn to work in any way." 

“It is not too late now — ^you are still so young.” 

“And, you might add, ‘so poor that work would be- 
come you. ' ” 

The words were very bitter ; they dropped like gall from 
her lips. 

“It would comfort and sustain you," said Warren, 
gravely and gently, not seeming to have noticed the self- 
scorn of her remark. 

“I wish, then, I knew how and where to begin.” 

“My mother will teach you; she loves all kinds of 
work, and it makes her happy, and fills up many a lonely 
hour." 

“Where would you advise me to begin? With scrub- 
bing? Ha! ha 1" 

The ghastly mockery of her laugh, and the suppressed 
disdain of her tone, showed how the pain of poverty was 
hurting her pioud heart 


LEDA^S HOST. 


363 

Warren could have wept over her, if tears could have 
eased the deep wound ; but he said compassionately, yet 
with serious dignity : 

“How you wrong yourself, when you feel and speak 
like that.” 

“Ah, my God! place yourself as I am, and you will 
not wonder that I feel and speak like that I” 

She uttered the words with a choking, sobbing voice, 
and put her head down on her knees in a convulsion of 
passionate weeping. 

It was all very unwomanly and unworthy for her to act 
so — to accept dependence and then revile herself for it; 
but, remembering all that her life had been, Warren pitied 
her with a brave man’s strong pity. He rose, flung away 
his cigar, and, walking to where she sat, bowed and 
shaken, he rested his hand on her chair, and said, softly : 

“Be patient, my sister; it is all very dreadful for you 
now, I know, but there is never anything in life so bad but 
that with courage and endurance we may amend it. Be 
worthy of yourself and your proud old name. You are 
unfortunate, but not dishonored; command for yourself 
the respect of the world who has witnessed your calamity, 
and, perhaps, is mean enough to be glad of it. Assert 
the only true sovereignty of noble birth, and show your- 
self nobler and stronger than the herd who would trample 
your former prestige in the dust of your present misfor- 
tunes. I will help you. ” 

“Ah ! what can I do.?” she sobbed, drearily. 


3^4 


LEDA^S HOST. 


For the moment she was humbled and subdued under 
the sweet weight of this grand heart’s pity. For the mo- 
ment she strove to be worthy of his respect. 

“Not much, right now; but we shall find ways. To 
resolve must be the first thing.” 

“Only show me how to become useful and helpful, 
and you shall see how I will try.” 

“Yes. Dry your tears now and go to sleep. We shall 
see what can be thought of. ” 

She obeyed him meekly, and listened for an hour to his 
firm, even tread passing and repassing on the starlit porch 
beyond the windows of her chamber. She lay in feverish 
excitement on her pillow, wondering how much nearer 
that night had brought her to her old place in that great 
heart. 

But there was nothing that answered her in the quick, 
steady steps as they came and went She heard them re- 
peated in her dreams long after all was silent in the cot- 
tage, but even in her dreams they revealed nothing. 


^^TEARS, IDLE TEARS /•• 


365 


CHAPTER XLI. 

TEARS, IDLE TEARS !” 

The next morning, instead of having a late breakfast 
served in her room as usual, Leda appeared at the cozy 
little round table just as the widow and her son were 
about to begin the early morning meal. Mrs. Warren 
expressed surprise, and said she hoped Leda had not 
hurried or disturbed herself; but Warren smiled ap- 
provingly, as he drew his own chair out for her to be 
seated. Not expecting a third person, another one had 
to be placed. 

After breakfast, when Warren was lighting his matutinal 
consolation, just before setting off to his office, he heard 
Leda say to his mother, in the next room : 

'‘Won’t you let me do the teacups for you this 
morning?” 

“Oh, dear, no! the hot water will rutn your pretty 
white hands.” 

“It hasn't ruined yours.” 

“ The looks of 'em it has; but I’m old, and don’t mind 
wTinkles. ” 

“Never mind; let me help you, if you please.” 

“Then just take the napkin and dry them as I scald,” 


366 


^^TEARS, IDLE TEARS/** 


said the old lady, not liking to seem unwilling to accept 
the proffered help, though much she marveled at it. 

Warren gave no sign of having heard, but took care to 
pass through the dining-room on his way out, and, stop- 
ping a minute in front of Leda, said : 

“ You’ve no idea hoiv the little household toils become 
a woman ; they beautify an ugly one, and enhance a 
beautiful one. Eh, mother?” 

“I don’t know about that, my son; but it’s natural 
and pleasant, I think, to see a woman always busy at 
something useful.” 

The words were too mild and kind to give offense, or 
even rebuke. 

Some days later Warren, contrary to his habit, remained 
at home for a little while after dinner. He waited in the 
sitting-room until Mrs. Warren found something to call 
her away, and then said to Leda, in his gentle way : 

“I have thought of and arranged something for you 
which will, I hope, be both agreeable and profitable. 
Instead of allowing your elegant piano to remain boxed 
up in a warehouse, where it now lies, and your skill as a 
musician to deteriorate from want of practice, why not 
have a music-class, and, at the same time that you increase 
your slender income, you will have an ocdupation con- 
genial to your tastes and not unbecoming to yourself. 
What do you say?” 

Leda’s face had grown scarlet at the bare idea of teach- 
ing the daughters of parvenu trades-people for hire, or, 


TEARS, IDLE TEARS/'’ 


3^7 


what was worse, the children of her peers and former 

rivals in the society world of . But she was ashamed 

to conferss so mean a pride, with those noble, calm eyes 
of Gordon Warren on her. She said : 

“I would do so cheerfully, but I cannot turn your 
house into a music-school. And how will I get the 
scholars?" 

“As to the first matter, it will be both pleasanter and 
more profitable for you, as well as more independent, to 
have a music-room in a more central portion of the city. 
This I can obtain for you at a moderate sum per month. 
As to the scholars, an advertising card in the papers will 
secure them, your brilliant proficiency is so well known 
here. I have already engaged three pupils for you from 
my personal friends; others will follow." 

Leda shuddered through every fiber of her thorough- 
bred aristocracy at the thought of seeing her own name 
upon a vulgar advertising card among o/Aer plebeian 
notices. But she was playing now for a stake that 
required every card in her hand to be well thrown. She 
bit her patrician lip to keep the angry protest back, and 
Warren mistook her emotion for pained embarrassment. 
He could not even conceive of such puerile hesitation. 

“You are so very kind to think of all this," she 
said, dropping her languid lids slowly, and looking her 
loveliest. 

“I should be very unkind not to think of everything 
to make you more comfortable. I may, then, consider 


368 


r£AJ^S, IDLE TEARSr 


it all settled, and at once publish your card and engage 
the room ?” 

‘‘Yes, of course." 

“ Yoii can begin on Monday ; this is Friday." 

He went away, hoping he had helped her to take the 
first step toward honorable independence. 

“I shall escort you as far as your music-room this 
morning," said Warren, as they rose from breakfast on 
the Monday appointed for Leda to begin her life of self- 
help. He knew she would feel pained to pass alone and 
on foot along the public thoroughfares, where formerly 
she rolled by in a luxurious coach with emblazoned panels 
and liveried slaves. 

Leda had given herself no manner of concern to inquire 
after or assist in the arrangements necessary for her new 
vocation. She did not even know to what street or house 
she was going when she appeared, closely vailed, to join 
Warren upon the cottage porch. 

A walk of fifteen minutes brought them to the foot of 
a flight of steps which led from the sidewalk of one of 
the principal streets to a room situated over a milliner’s 
store, and which could be entered from the outside by 
means of these steps. Warren explained, as he handed 
Leda up the stairway : 

“The whole house belongs to Mrs. Mackey, the mil- 
liner, who is a clever old widow lady, with two daughters. 
They occupy all of the rooms above the store save this 
one. I thought it best for you to be here in case you 


“TEARS, IDLE TEARS!” 


369 

might have bad weather sometimes, and could stop over 
a few hours with the family; they are kind, respectable 
people. " 

Leda knew them well enough ; she had bought ribbons 
from them sometimes. 

‘ ‘ One of the girls will take lessons of you for the rent 
of the room, '' he added, as he opened the door of a neat, 
snug apartment. A fresh matting on the floor, white linen 
blinds at the four windows, a few straw chairs, and her 
own grand piano-forte, constituted the furnishing of the 
room, together with a table for music that stood near 
the handsome instrument. “Your first scholar, Mollie 
Mackey, will come up to you directly. I will go down 
and let her know. Can I do anything more for you this 
morning.?’' 

She shook her head, for she could not trust her voice 
to speak. Her face was very pale, and her lips quivered. 
It was all so new and strange, and the woman had only a 
false, vain pride, and no true courage, to help her through 
her sore strait. 

Warren felt it best to leave her. He smiled encour- 
agingly as he waved her adieu and went down the steps to 
his office. 

She stood at the window watching his tall, spare form, 
till it disappeared round a corner. 

Miss Mackey soon made her entrance before the music 
teacher, Mrs. Leda Morgan — so her name appeared on 
the card of advertisement. 


370 


^^TEARS, IDLE TEARS r 


Four young ladies, more or less plebeian, but quite 
able to pay the somewhat expensive price that Warren had 
affixed to the terms offered by one of the most superb 
amateur musicians to be found in the whole country, 
filled up the first day's list of pupils. At the end of a 
week, Leda found that she had as many scholars as she 
could possibly attend to. Some through pure kindness, 
others through malice, and others because of self-interest 
— the townfolks promptly gave their pitronage to the new 
teacher, of wffiose unfortunate condition the whole com- 
munity were gossiping. 

Leda was thus, almost without an effort of her own 
will, and certainly without any personal exertion, placed 
in a position of respectability and independence. 

Decency should have instructed her that she must not 
any longer accept the hospitality of her friends ; but she 
had her reasons for choosing to remain at the cottage. 

On the second morning of her venture, Warren had 
said to her : 

“I will not wait for you to-day. It may cause un- 
pleasant remarks for you if I am your invariable escort to 
the music-room. You will understand this; but I am 
always near enough to attend to any business, or render 
any service that you may require. You see, I want to 
teach you to be self-reliant at once." 

He went away, and, when Leda reached the music-room 
an hour after, she found a vase of lovely wet roses on the 
piano awaiting her. 


TEARS. IDLE TEARS P* 


371 


Her cheek flushed with pleasure. She knew well whose 
thoughtful hand had thus brightened the little room for 
her day’s labors. 

And so it happened often. Sometimes flowers, often a , 
new book, or basket of fresh fruits, would greet her as 
she entered the little upper chamber in the millinery. 

But of Warren she saw less than ever. His health had 
improved, and his business increased, so that he often 
worked late into the night, merely taking his meals at 
home. 

His manner to Leda was always the same — gentle, 
thoughtful, fraternally kind, but grave; and though he 
was universally cheerful, there seemed to be a profound 
preoccupation in his air and expression. This might arise 
from business cares. Leda contented herself with thinking 
so, and her secret hope grew strong within her that his 
heart was surely leaning to its old fondness. She could 
put no other construction upon his unvarying considera- 
tion for her and his covert attentions. But his self- 
contained manner puzxled her strangely. Her presence 
or her absence seemed alike to him, so far as any mani- 
festation of personal feeling. If she came unexpectedly 
before him, he always met her with the quiet smile that 
seemed to say, “It is well” — only this. If she left his 
company, no anxious glance followed her. 

After awhile this became monotonous, and, of all 
things, Leda abhorred monotony ; she had lived so much 
in a changeful whirl of excitement. She determined on 


37 * 


''TEARS, IDLE TEARS R 


a diversion ; she would rouse him to the startling fact that 
her brilliant presence in his home was by no means a 
fixed fact. She had purposely remained in it long enough 
to stamp herself upon it, and to breathe about its prim, 
fresh chambers a wonderful something of her regal and 
voluptuous beauty; to fill its atmosphere with the soft, 
subtle odors that floated ever about her, like the incense 
around “the Paphian’s’' shrines. 

If he were a man, and not a mere human being with 
brains, he mus/ have become sensible of all this rich, 
exuberant charm of her presence. 

“I want to talk with you for a minute this evening,” 
she said, touching Warren’s arm with her fingers as they 
passed from the tea-table; and then added, shyly, “that 
is, if you are not in a very great hurry to get back to your 
office.” 

“I am never ^in a hurry' when you require my atten- 
tion,” he said, sweetly, as he drew two chairs to the 
center-table, where a solar lamp burned softly. 

Leda took one, and he placed himself opposite, assum- 
ing an attentive and interested air. 

“I want to consult you on a little matter of business. 
I have decided to take another room from Mrs. Mackey — 
the large one adjoining my music-room.” 

“What do you want with another?” 

“Why, to live in.” 

He seemed in no wise shocked ; but asked, gently : 
“Are you not comfortable here?” 


TEARS, IDLE TEARS'” 


373 


‘ ‘ Oh, yes, very ; and — and so happy. 

She murmured the last words tenderly, while her cheek 
bloomed out like a new-blown rose. 

“Why change, then.?’' 

“Well, because I think it might be best. The weather 
is sometimes bad for me to wa^k through the streets; and, 
on all accounts, I think I should do this.” 

“You know that you are ever so welcome here, and it 
would be lonely for you to board.” 

Her heart throbbed gladly in her bosom, for his tone 
was regretful and insistent. 

“Ah, yes, do not remind me of //la/; it has required 
all my courage to make the resolve.” 

“Are you thinking that it will be a more independent 
and dignified position for you than to stay on with us ?” 

“Yes; just that,” she answered, softly, and lowering 
her lids. 

He was silent for awhile. 

She breathed heavily and excitedly, wondering what 
would come from those chaste, firm lips that were pressed 
thoughtfully together under their black, silken mustache. 

Warren was looking down upon a flower that he held. 
It seemed a great while to Leda before he raised his face a 
little, and said, with his accustomed gentleness : 

“Perhaps you are right. I had not thought of it in 
that light, but I can understand. I want you to do what 
will make you happiest, of course. ” 

She felt as if some one had given her a blow that 


374 


^ TEARS, IDLE TEARS!' 


deadened her senses for a minute. All the soft, warm 
color went out of her face. As she did not speak, 
he said : 

“ Have you spoken to Mrs. Mackey.?'’ 

“Yes. She consents to let me have the whole suite — 
music-room, chamber, and dressing-room — and to furnish 
my meals, at $25 per month, including Mollies lessons." 

“That is wonderfully cheap; and, if you like the place, 
I think you could not do better." 

“Yes; I do like it. They are nice, quiet people, and 
keep things neatly. I should furnish all the rooms from 
my own things. " 

‘ ‘ That would be pleasanter, and your furniture is doing 
no good where it is. Shall I make any arrangements 
about it for you ?” 

“Thank you; if you would engage some one to assist 
Roxana to unpack and place such things as she will select 
from it, I will be very glad." 

“Certainly I will whenever you wish; but there’s hurry 
about it, eh?" 

He asked the question in his soft, courteous way, but 
there seemed to be no special anxiety in it. 

•'‘The sooner the better, I think," she replied. 

“Very well ; I shall see a man to-morrow, and the next 
day it can be done, if you like ; but, pray, do not worry 
about getting away from us. We shall miss you much. ' 

He was on his feet now, had taken his hat, and seemed 
about to go. There were tears trembling on Leda's 


TEARS, IDLE TEARS r 375 

lashes. He felt she was in pain, yet hesitated about what 
to say more. 

He came and stood near her, resting his fingers on the 
table at her side ; the softly-toned golden rays of the lamp 
fell over her beautiful bowed face, and the drops on her 
lashes glistened like jewels. His man’s heart was moved 
by her aspect of sorrow. He said : 

“My friend, if you think best to leave us, I will not 
urge you to stay, though I could wish you to be less in 
haste to depart. You are the wisest judge of what is most 
expedient for you, but remember always that, no matter 
where you are, I am still your friend, and, when you need 
me, your brother. And this shall be home to you when 
you care to come to us.’" 

She leaned her forehead on his arm for a minute, and 
her tears rained down on his hand ; then, with an im- 
pulsive movement, she rose and quitted the room. 

He took forth his delicate cambric handkerchief and 
wiped the rain of her tears from his hand — reverently 
enough, it is true, but as he would have dried away the 
drops from any other sad woman’s eyes. He then left the 
cottage. 


37*5 


THE LOST IS FOUND. 


CHAPTER XLII. 

THE LOST IS FOUND. 

Deeply chagrined and disappointed, no doubt, yet by 
no means despairing, Leda established herself in her new 
lodging, which, on some accounts, was preferable to her 
tastes. The simple but commodious apartments over the 
millinery were wonderfully transformed by the introduc- 
tion of elegant furniture, hangings, and decorations, which 
were all that remained to Leda of her once magnificent 
home. The little music-room became an exquisite bou- 
doir, where delicate mauve draperies, and rare roses, and 
statuettes, and bric-a-brac breathed to the sweet summer 
wind sweeping over them tales of a forgotten splendor. 

When the day was done, and the pupils, with their 
nervous hands and badly learned lessons, were out of 
sight, and, what was better, out of hearing, it was not a 
bad place for Leda to spend her evenings, had she pos- 
sessed the least talent in the world for entertaining her- 
self. 

Throughout her holiday youth there had never been any 
need that she should learn that most valuable of all ac- 
complishments, since there were always so many ready and 
willing to entertain her. Sometimes Warren stopped in 


THE LOST IS FOUND. 377 

for a little talk with her at twilight on his way home to tea, 
but he rarely staid long. 

Once she said to him, as he moved to go away : 

“Why do you go? lam so lonely here. You might 
sometimes give me a whole evening, as in the old days.” 

“It would be pleasant for me,” he said, gravely; “but 
these are not the old days, and people might talk of you. 
You cannot be too careful, and it is better to be lonely 
than have unpleasant comments. I will come with mother 
sometimes whenever she can walk so far. ” 

But oftener that he came he would stop at the door of 
the shop below, and ask Mollie to run up with flowers or 
fruits to Leda, from his mother. 

It was true that he did miss her presence from the neat 
little cottage, as one might miss a great splendid rose from 
a bed of modest pinks and daisies, but she would have 
been consumed with wounded vanity had she known how 
much more freely he breathed the sweet, pure air that no 
longer w’as laden with the subtle perfumes that exhaled 
from her magnificent hair and the clinging folds of her 
soft black robes. 

He lingered more at home now that her dark, humid 
eyes were no longer there to follow his movements ; and 
the placid old face of his mother, in its spotless white cap, 
was a more soothing and healthful picture for his passing 
glance to rest on than Leda’s pure oval cheek, with its 
rich peach bloom, or its alabaster luster. 

He had come to wonder at himself for the old madness 


37 ^ 


THE LOST IS FOUND. 


that had drawn him to that gorgeous beauty, as the 
poisoned chalice of an Eastern jungle flower draws the 
bee to drink and die. And, thinking on the fierce fever 
of that vanished time, a cold, shuddering aversion would 
creep through his blood. 

Verily, her wand was broken ! 

A short time after Leda’s removal to her new lodgings, 
the busy fates gathered up and mended a broken thread in 
the curious web into which her life was being woven with- 
out her will. 

One day Gordon Warren took from the package of 
letters delivered at his office one addressed to “Messrs. 
Croft & Warren, Attorneys-at-Law. " Many thus directed 
had come to him since the tragic dissolution of copartner- 
ship, but this one bore a foreign postmark. He opened 
it carelessly, supposing it related to some mercantile claim 
for his collection ; but his heart leapt to his mouth as he 
saw drop from the large business letter a little envelope, 
addressed to Mr. Croft, in Faith Hilary’s delicate, round 
hand, that he had learned to know and love so well during 
his long illness, when each day s offering of flowers from 
the girl came, attended with a word of affectionate in- 
quiry penned in the free, light characters that now held his 
gaze. 

It was as if he had suddenly caught the sound of a 
voice from the other world, or as if some shadow of pass- 
ing spirits had fallen athwart his sight. 

For a little while he trembled wdth mingled awe and 


THE LOST IS FOUND. 


379 


gladness. Then he broke the seal and tenderly unfolded 
the sheets of thin, closely-written paper, upon which 
Faith had set down a brief history of the strange incidents 
through which she had passed. 

The letter began : 

‘ ‘ My dear guardian. ” 

It was not addressed to him, yet Warren felt that to him 
alone in all the world it now appealed. Dizzy with con- 
tending sensations, he read rapidly through the letter once, 
and then put it down to take his breath, and to thank God 
for the safe delivery of the guileless young creature who 
told of her most appalling perils with the sweet, ingenuous 
naivete that showed how little she had been able to appre- 
ciate all of their dread possibilities. 

Cold drops of mortal terror for what might have befallen 
this white dove, this exquisite Una among the lions, still 
stood upon Warren's brow after he had learned from the 
recital that Faith was then safe and well, in a beautiful 
home, with kind friends. 

She prayed her guardian to come at once and bring her 
“back home.” 

“Alas, poor little one! Where is her ‘home?’” said 
Warren, half aloud; as he turned to the letter which in- 
closed Faith's, and which was merely a formal business 
communication from Mr Godfrey, assuring Mr. Croft that 
his ward would be safely and tenderly cared for until he 
should send or come for her. 

A whirl of strange feelings confused Gordon Warren's 


SSo 


THE LOST IS FOUND. 


brain, so that he found it difficult to rouse himself to the 
fact that he was not the victim of some hallucination. All 
the vague, mysterious ideas about her spirit’s haunting him 
came back to his thoughts now in vivid shape. He tried 
to read over her letter once more, but he could not ; he 
was too tremulous ; his hand shook, his brain swam ; he 
felt he must have some human sympathy to steady his 
nerves. 

Of course. Faith's unhappy mother must be apprised of 
her safety at once, if that were possible. With this pur- 
pose in view, Warren repaired to Mr. Craig’s office, and, 
without stating the facts that had just come to his knowl- 
edge, he questioned Mr. Craig of Rachel’s present resi- 
dence. 

“I have not the least idea where to find her, nor have I 
any address by which to communicate with her," said Mr. 
Craig, in reply. 

“Is it possible that you are in ignorance of her hiding- 
place also?" 

“Utterly so. I hold certain papers of hers, relating to 
a large deposit of $120,000 in gold, now lying at her 
credit in the State Bank ; but my instructions are to retain 
these papers, and to preserve the most sacred secrecy with 
regard to their contents, until 1 shall receive further in- 
structions from her, or until I know that she is dead. In 
me latter case, I am to administer upon her will, which is' 
among these papers left in my charge." 

Profoundly perplexed, Warren left Mr. Craig's office, 


THE LOST IS FOUND, 381 

and decided to stop with Leda and communicate to her 
the joyful news of Faith’s safety. In his bewildering de- 
light on this account, he seemed to have forgotten, or to 
ignore his former resentment and mistrust of Leda con- 
cerning the unaccountable disappearance of the child from 
her protection. 

I: was almost dark on the street when he reached the 
millinery, and was shown up to Leda’s apartments; the 
lamp was lighted in her sitting-room, and she sat by the 
table, reading. 

‘ What has happened ?” she exclaimed, the moment she 
saw Warren’s face. 

No wonder; it seemed transfigured, as if his soul were 
ablaze behind it. 

“Faith is found — is safel” was all he could say for a 
minute. 

Well for Leda that he had bent his head over *he letter 
he had taken from his pocket, and therefore did not catch 
the look of blank dismay that came to her face. He mis- 
took her silence for a rush of glad emotion akin to that 
which had stunned him at first. With nervous haste, he 
proceeded to read aloud from her letter. He was glad to 
have some other loving heart to throb with his own over 
the hair-breadth escapes and blood-curdling perils of the 
child’s desperate adventures. He read rapidly at first, but 
soon more slowly, as if to take in the full meaning of each 
word. He did not remember, nor care, that it was Leda 
who listened; it was a human creature who had known 


382 


THE LOST IS FOUND. 


Faith. With a less powerful stimulus to intuition than 
graded her acute perceptions, Leda must have seen how 
delirious with gladness the man’s soul was. 

By the time he reached the end of the letter her heart 
was in a frenzy of jealous rage. 

What was this girl, this mere child, to him, that his 
tones should tremble and thrill with her name, when she, 
the glorious woman, had failed to stir an emotion to life 
in his breast } 

As he concluded the last sentence, Leda said, with a 
withering scorn on her lips and in her accent : 

*‘Poor, stupid creature! Who on earth does she im- 
agine will be weak-minded enough to believe such an ill- 
told fable ?’^ 

Warren dropped the letter, and started as if some one 
had struck him. His eyes opened wide with indignant 
amaze, as he said ; 

‘ ‘ Who that knows her would doubt one syllable of it ?” 

“Come, my dear friend, that is sheer quixotism. Faith 
is a silly girl, it is true, but in person and years she is a 
woman, ” 

“Well, and what of it?” 

“Everything to render that story preposterous. In the 
first place, who that knows Julian Vernois would give the 
benefit of a doubt to any girl, not absolutely a fright, who 
had been to sea with him for two weeks aboard a privateer, 
manned by two desperado sailors and one heathen?” 


THE LOST IS FOUND, 383 

'*/, madam, would swear that she is this moment as 
pure and as innocent as an angel !" 

His tones were so sharp and stern that they cut the air, 
and his face was pallid with anger. 

Leda was too fairly roused to think or care for conse- 
quences now. She laughed satirically, as she said : 

“ I fear, then, you will swear to unbelievers. The days 
of miracles are past, and men like Julian Vernois are 
stubborn facts in the path of credulous young damsels, 
and still some credulous knights like yourself. In the 
first place, what induced her to go off in that boat with 
him at that time in the evening?" 

“You know well enough that she is impulsive and 
thoughtless as any child. He was a scoundrel for taking 
her. " 

“Perhaps. Tve nothing to say for his prudence; in- 
deed, his best friend couldn’t praise Julian’s delicate con- 
sideration for a pretty girl who was foolish enough to run 
away with him. ’’ 

This was a little more than Warren’s patience could 
bear. Had •she been a man, most likely that speech 
would have been her last. As it was, he said, through 
his set teeth : 

“As well as you know that you live, you know that you 
utter an insinuation that is false and cruel." 

‘ ‘ I am candid enough to say what all the world, save 
yourself, will think, and few will hesitate to proclaim aloud 
just the sent sentiment I have expressed." 


384 


A MEETING, 


‘ ‘ Then had they best wear the shield that protects you, 
madam. Excuse me if I decline to listen further to your 
most unworthy remarks.” 

He had already gathered up the letters, and now strode 
from Leda’s presence, trembling in every nerve. There 
was only one feeling alive in his breast — the wild, aching 
desire to clasp and shield the fair white creature, whom 
tongues like that woman's would seek to sting to death with 
their venom. 

The next day Leda learned, through Roxana, that Gor- 
don Warren had left the city. She needed no oracle to 
tell her whither his steps were bound. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

A MEETING. 

“A young gentleman to see Miss Hilary, mum,” an- 
nounced a tidy English housemaid, who entered a charm- 
ing sitting-room on the upper floor of Mr. Theodore God- 
frey's delightful home on the South American coast. 

An elderly lady and three young girls were talking and 
sewing together when thus interrupted. 

“Who can be wanting to see Miss Hilary.?” said Faith, 
stopping short in the midst of a merry laugh, provoked by 
Leila Godfrey’s wit. 


A MEETING. 


385 


“ Come, now, Miss Hilary, don’t put on airs ; you know 
quite well that you've made an outright capture of the 
Hon. George Montfort — stolen incontinently from me. 
I’ll bet anything on earth it is the Hon. George I” 

Miss Godfrey assumed a severe tone in alleging this charge 
against her lovely young guest, but her pretty dimpled face 
did not corroborate the indignation of her tone. 

“What nonsense, Leila! The Hon. George wouldn’t 
know me again, unless, perhaps, he should meet me with 
you.” 

“That’s all very nice for you to say, but I guess I know 
who he danced with three several times at the Chiltons’ 
party last week, and whose cloak he so tenderly folded 
round somebody’s shoulders, and the longing, lingering 
look of his eyes in ‘the last good-night.' I’ve been look- 
ing for this sequel to that evening every day since. Oh, 
my prophetic soul 1 My uncle 1 George I” 

The witticism was not, in fact, very pungent, but it pro- 
voked a silvery shower of laughter from three sweet young 
throats, and, quite overcome with embarrassment at the 
idea of being individually summoned to the parlor to 
receive a visit from the Hon. George Montfort, lieutenant- 
governor of the province. Faith rose from the low rocking- 
chair. 

“Is my hair all right.?” she asked, timidly, of Leila, 
whose bright eyes wore no envious glance, as she swept 
them from head to foot over the little nymph-like figure of 
her friend. 


386 


A MEETING. 


“When was it ever wrong, f wonder? When you wake 
up in the morning it lies as smooth and shiny as mine 
after an hour’s brushing. Yes, you’re all right — don't 
alter a curl — you’re altogether too captivating to suit my 
fancy, just as you stand. Miss Hilary. ” 

Faith blushed and smiled, and her slender white fingers 
arranged the knot of pale rose silk that fastened a lace ruff 
at the throat of the bright blue lawn dress that she wore. 

Miss Godfrey was not wrong when she called the girl 
“captivating.” It was just the word for Faith. It was a 
little wonderful, too, what a change a few months in the 
tropics — preceded by those trying weeks of endurance, 
which had acted upon her nature as a forcing-glass on a 
plant, and brought to the light all of the subtle latent 
powers of womanhood, had made in the personnel of our 
little heroine. 

The almost infantile expression that belonged to the 
child of sixteen, who left Lucerne that bright spring morn- 
ing months ago, had given place to a look of tender and 
sweet maturity, not unmixed with pathos ; for, despite her 
happy life with these kind strangers, there was often a 
deep and yearning sadness m Faith’s heart — the sorrow of 
the exile longing for home and the dear faces that affec- 
tion, that cunningest limner, has stamped on the soul. 

Added to this, the soft, voluptuous climate and beauti- 
ful scenery of those magical latitudes had developed both 
the physical and aesthetical nature of the girl to a sur- 
prising extent. 


A MEETING, 


387 


She was a little taller, very much more symmetrical, and 
the curves of her form were of a fuller and richer outline, 
the bloom on her cheek of a deeper hue, the shades of 
her gold-brown hair of darker tones, and the dreamful 
glory of her soft, womanly eye had a quality of magnetism. 
It was hard to loose one's gaze from its clear, candid look. 

As Faith quitted the circle of her friends to descend to 
the parlors, Mrs. Godfrey said to her daughters : 

“It’s no wonder the child creates a sensation in our 
social gathering, she is so wonderfully soft and lovely, 
like one of those Southern roses, and just as fresh and 
pure.” 

“ How I wish she belonged to us !” sighed Leila. “I’m 
in terror of my life every day lest we shall hear of her old 
guardian’s arrival, or get orders to ship her back to him.” 

“It is so sweet of her never to seem anxious or home- 
sick, yet I know that she often is — I can see it when the 
sad, far-away look comes into her eyes,” said Alice, the 
younger of the Godfrey sisters. 

While she was being thus discussed. Faith was slowly 
descending the broad stairway to the handsome saloon 
that opened upon the hall below, and where she expected 
to find Sir George Montfort, of whose attentions Miss 
Godfrey affected such envy. 

Indeed, Faith was by no means as ignorant as she chose 
to appear of the intense admiration that the young English 
baronet had manifested two evenings previously when she 
attended a soiree with her friends. 


388 


A MEETING, 


The remembrance of his warm, eager glances called a 
brighter tinge of color to her face as she entered the dim 
coolness of the azure-tinted chamber. 

The tall and grandly-proportioned form of her visitor 
was outlined before her against the light of a vailed win- 
dow at the end of the room, where he stood turning the 
leaves of a small portfolio of drawings. 

Faith had not taken many steps toward him when she 
halted suddenly, and pressed her hands together, with a 
low, startled exclamation. 

The visitor turned round, and, with one long stride, as 
it seemed, reached her side. 

“My little Faith!” 

It was all he said, or could say. His hands were clasp- 
ing each of hers, and her cheek was leaning against bis 
arm, while she kept saying over and over, softly : 

“Oh, Mr. Warren! Mr. Warren! I am so glad — so 
glad !” 

He could tell by the panting movement of her bosom, 
and the low, sobbing sighs, that a great upheaval of joy 
was going on in the girl’s breast ; but she did not cry, nor 
go into ecstasies. He led her in silence to a sofa, and sat 
down by her, still holding both of her hands, still feeling 
the warmth of her cheek pressed close to his arm. 

The old days had come back to her — she felt herself 
only a little child near this great, strong, quiet man. 

After awhile he put his hand under her chin and raised 
)i?r face. It was calmer, but flushed with a great glad- 


A MEETING. 389 

ness, and her eyes overflowed with a wonderful light of 
thanksgiving. 

In that moment the man’s soul seemed to become en- 
veloped in a cloud of glory. 

The apocalyptic vision of a new heaven and a new earth, 
that once, and only once, in a human life crosses the 
spirit’s sight, was before him. He had lost and deeply 
mourned for a bright, pure, tenderly-loved child, who had 
been to his heart as a pet bird that must be nursed, and 
cared for, and caressed. He found her an exquisite 
woman, with all the mystical, entrancing exhalations of 
passion and poesy floating about her, and all the un- 
conscious potency of her sex trembling in her soft 
beauty. 

There was neither madness, nor fever, nor pain, nor 
reluctance in the utter rendering up of all his being to the 
sweet bewilderment of this woman’s presence. 

For the first time he was conscious of the wide differ- 
ence betv'een infatuation and love. The one, a burning 
vein of electric fire that riots through blood and brain — 
that makes the pulse beat to suffocation — that blinds the 
vision and inflames every sense ; the other, a profound 
and perfect lulling of the soul to blissful rest — a foretaste 
of that supreme hour when the beatific raptures of angels 
shall open the new life of the redeemed spirit 

As for Faith — well, she did not know what had come to 
her, but the past and the future seemed alike to have been 
annihilated. The blessed present was enough for her. 


390 


A MEETING, 


She looked into the calm, grand eyes once more, and in 
them she beheld home, happiness, friends, life, 

♦ * * 3k * 

But nothing of all this passed their lips ; their talk was 
of Faith’s strange adventures. Warren felt it was neither 
the time nor the place to speak of love. For the present 
he was simply her guardian, her friend, her protector. 

With many misgivings as to what that fair, innocent 
being might have to suffer from the knowledge of all the 
dreary incidents that had transpired during her absence, he 
determined first to restore her to her proper place in the 
social world, and await the course of events. 

He simply informed her that a dreadful calamity had 
befallen her guardian ; that he had been tried and found 
guilty of a felony, and condemned to imprisonment for 
life, and that he was then in Pennsylvania, undergoing his 
punishment ; that her mother was still absent ; that Leda 
was residing in the city ; and that for the present he would 
occupy the position of her guardian, and take her to re- 
side with his mother until he should receive instructions 
as to her own mother’s wishes in her regard. 

This programme was the best he could devise under the 
circumstances, and, by placing Faith in the seclusion of 
his own home, he could there defend her from the tongues 
of idle or cruel gossips until it was meet she should hear 
the whole bitter truth. 

Immediately after their arrival in , and after charg- 

ing his mother to permit no one save herself to have any 


IN NO MIN IS UMBRA. 


391 


interviews with their dear young charge, Warren went to 
Mr. Craig to consult with him upon the proper course to 
be pursued. Before he had time to announce his busi- 
ness, the old lawyer said : 

*‘Ah, sir, I am glad to have some good news for you; 
it has been awaiting your return for over two weeks. 
Where on earth have you been 

“To fetch Miss Hilary home.” 

“ Miss Hilary ! Humph ! it's a bad time for her to ap- 
pear en scene. ” 

“Why so, sir?” 

“Well, simply because all of her property has just been 
consigned to another person. ” 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

IN NOMINIS UMBRA. 

“ Given to another 1 What can you mean?” 

“Simply this — that Rachel Croft is dead, and that I 
have a letter from her, written just before her death, direct- 
ing me to administer upon the will left in my hands, and 
that will bestows the whole of her property upon the heir 
which Mrs. Croft selected to take her daughter’s place.” 

“Of course, the will must be declared null and void," 
said Warren, with determined emphasis. 


392 


m NOMimS UMBRA. 


“We shall see about that. First, tell me the history of 
Miss Hilary's re-appearance at this inopportune juncture." 

Warren proceeded to relate minutely and circumstan- 
tially all that had befallen the girl from the moment of 
her leaving Leda’s side at the picnic until the present in- 
stant. 

Mr. Craig heard the narrative through without a com- 
ment until Warren concluded it. 

The old lawyer, who was one of the social magnates, as 

well as the senior member of the bar at , shook his 

gray head doubtfully, and, after a short silence, he horri- 
fied the young man by saying : 

“Poor girl! I fear there isn’t much chance of her 
getting anybody to believe that tale, or to receive her into 
decent society, even if her relationship with Mathew Croft 
had not already ruined her prospects. " 

Warren sat almost petrified with indignation. When he 
could manage his voice to speak calmly, he said : 

“Sir, do I understand you, a gentleman and the hus- 
band and father of pure women, to be the first to deny 
this innocent girl’s claim to the sympathy and respect of 
society because of her father’s crime and her own dreadful 
misfortune in having disappeared with a man of infamous 
reputation?" 

“My dear young friend, it is precisely because I am the 
'husband and father of pure w'omen’ that I must be 
among the first to exclude all doubtful appearances from 
the society of which they and I are members. I am as 


IN NO MINIS UMBRA. 


393 


sorry for the girl as you are, and it was not I who made 
the terrible statute, * the sins of the fathers shall be visited 
upon the children.’ Furthermore, Miss Hilary’s own 
statement affirms that she voluntarily placed herself in the 
position that led to all her subsequent disasters — ify in- 
deed, she has not woven a thrilling romance to cover an 
escapade of a more than probable nature. ” 

While Mr. Craig was giving expression to the latter 
clause of his remarks, Warren had risen to his feet. The 
bitterest and most sovereign contempt and anger shook 
his whole strong frame. He said, with scathing scorn : 

*^Sir, one tongue — a woman’s — dared utter once before 
the sentiment that has just disgraced your lips. It would 
be no less cowardly in me to punish it in you, in the only 
way a man can punish such an offense, than if I had smit- 
ten her. Your great age and gray hairs defend you from 
my blows, but nothing shall defend you from my eternal 
contempt.” 

With this Warren strode from the presence of the old 
man, and from his house, leaving Mr. Craig quite stunned. 
He muttered to himself : 

“Good Lord ! the fellow must be in love with her! If 
so. I’ve made a sweet mess of it. He little dreams what 
I’ve got in store for him.” 

Meantime Gordon Warren retraced his steps toward his 
home and Faith, carrying a grieved and heavy heart in his 
breast 

Was it, indeed, true that poor little Faith’s unhappy 


394 


IN NOMINIS UMBRA. 


accident of birth, and the result of her childish impru- 
dence, were to become the means of her life-long humilia- 
tion ? 

He had heard almost the very same sentiment expressed 
by two persons, each an authority in the code of society, 
and each a fair representative of the class who were to pass 
sentence upon the fair, delicate young being, whose ex- 
quisite nature would be blasted utterly by one such stroke 
as had been given her that day. 

As he reached his own gate he found his mother stand- 
ing at it waiting for him. She said : 

‘ ‘ My son, I want to say a few words to you before you 
go indoors. I know they will hurt you, but you ought 
to hear them. Leda came here while you were gone, and 
asked me about Faith’s coming, saying you had told her 
all. She then informed me that the moment it was known 
Faith had arrived and was with us the whole town would 
be rife with scandal, for that no people in their senses 
would believe one word of her sad story, and that we 
would not only have a convict’s daughter, but worse, on 
our hands.” 

“And what did^^?« say, my mother?” 

His pale lace wore an anxious agony as he put the ques- 
tion. 

The old woman answered, very simply and earnestly : 

“ Why, my son, what was I to say but that it would be 
our pride and pleasure to love and shelter the child, and 
to honor instead of despising her for her sad mischance, 


IN NOMINIS UMBRA. 


395 


and that the world never lied more badly than when it 
touched that sweet angel’s name with its foul insinua- 
tions. ” 

God bless you, my own good mother 1” 

Leaning down, he kissed the wrinkled old brow, and 
thanked Heaven that his life had sprung from the clean, 
true heart that beat under the snow-white kerchief pinned 
over Dame Warren s breast 

He passed on up the walk, bordered with lilac bushes. 

The spicy scent of late chrysanthemums filled the even- 
ing air, and a few white lilies bloomed on a bed near the 
house. 

He stooped and broke the freshest and purest from its 
stem, and then entered the house. 

Within the sweet, tidy library Faith sat by a west win- 
dow to catch the last light on the page she was reading. 

She was freshly dressed in a pale-violet muslin, and her 
cheeks were faintly flushing as she lifted her face to meet 
Warren’s. 

He came at once to her side and fastened the lily in her 
hair, so that its sunny petal just touched the delicate ear. 

Your fingers are deft as a woman’s,” she said, laugh- 
ing softly, as he finished pinning the flower to her coil of 
hair. 

He did not speak for a minute, but stood quite near 
her, looking down upon her, half tenderly, half sadly, but 
with that deep worship in his eyes that was his soul’s un- 
uttered prayer to her. Then he said, lowly ; 


396 


m tfOMINIS UMBRA. 


“Faith, are you glad to be here?” 

“Glad ! That is a poor, weak word. It is like reach- 
ing heaven after all that has been. ” 

“Could you feel so, if you knew you were never to have 
any other or better home than this, child?” 

“What should I care for a better? — this is so sweet and 
lovely a little spot in itself. Yet, after all, it is not the place 
that matters, it is how we feel in it.” 

“Do you ‘feel' right in this one?” he asked, smiling. 

“ Yes ; it seems to suit me — so still, so green, so peace- 
ful.” 

“Better than Mr. Godfrey s splendid home?” 

“Oh, so much better 1 Though that is beautiful, and 
I learned to love it ; there was so much of it — one felt lost 
in those palatial rooms.” 

‘ ‘ Better than Lucerne ?” 

“I could never be happy again at Lucerne, with things 
so changed.” 

The tone was cold and sad; she was thinking of the 
master’s fate. 

Warren bent down to his knee beside her chair, and, 
looking straight into her eyes, he said : 

“Faith, my beloved, this is my home, and I want it 
and myself to be yours forever. Will you have it so, 
dear?” 

Her eyes made him all the answer that he needed, for 
he drew her to his breast and held her closely folded there 


m NOMINIS UMBRA. 397 

in a long, happy silence. Then he made her look up 
again, and said : 

^‘My darling, if I should ask you to do a very unusual 
thing, just to show how much you love me, tvould you 
consent?" 

‘‘Of course I would.” 

“No matter what it might be?” 

“No matter what. If you wished it, it would be 
right.” 

“Then, I want you to take my name, and my home, 
and me^ right at once — to-morrow.” 

“Then, I must.” 

“What a gem of a woman you are, my pearl 1” 

“Why.?” 

“Never to make a word of objection, or give a sign of 
surprise, as other women would have done. ” 

“Then they could not know, and love, and trust you 
as I do. I would give you my life — why not my hand, 
when and as you want it?” 

“No reason, dear child. Only others would have made 
one, I think.” 

The next day, attended by his mother and a few inti- 
mate friends, Warren and Faith were married in a pic- 
turesque old church, which was the place of worship most 
affected by the grand ton of . 

Their nuptials were proclaimed by the sweet chime of 
the old bell, whose sonorous tongue had told the hour for 
birth, marriage, and death during many a year, and Mrs. 


39 ^ 


m NOMimS UMBRA. 


Grundy lost no time in catching up the note and repeating 
from ear to ear that the rising young lawyer and successor 
to Mathew Croft’s large practice had brought home and 
married the convict’s daughter, and the heroine of a 
strange romance. But, with that stalwart form and noble 
presence of Gordon Warren rising like an iron bulwark 
beside his young wife’s frail loveliness, none dared so 
much as whisper the dark innuendo that lurked under 
many a smile that followed their happy steps. 

Warren did not stir from home after returning thither 
with his bride from the church. But, after their small 
band of friends had drank their health and departed, he 
passed the blessed hours lying at Faith’s feet in the quiet 
little library, and telling all the love and tenderness that 
was garnered up in his heart for her during that long sep- 
aration when he thought her in heaven. 

He simply reversed the usual order of such affairs, and 
made love after instead of before the wedding. 

He was saying to her : 

“Neither fortune nor worldly station are mine to offer 
you yet, sweet wife, but, having you, all other good and 
gracious gifts will follow in due season. Meantime, we 
shall not miss them. Shall we. Faith ?’^ 

The answer that she leaned down to give him was pre- 
vented by the knock of a visitor. 

Warren frowned at the intrusion, but rose to attend to 
the summons, as no one else seemed to be near at hand. 

At the door of the cottage stood Mr. Craig. 


^^THE DAY IS DOATEI* 


399 


** Pardon my seemingly ill-timed call, Mr. Warren, but 
when you have heard my business with you, I fancy I 
shall be forgiven for interrupting even so sacred a holiday 
as this to make it known. 

*‘Walk in, Mr. Craig,” said Warren, with cold courtesy. 
It was his own house, and for the time he must forget 
that Mr. Craig had uttered words that he never intended 
to forgive. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

*^THK DAY IS DONE.” 

Faith had vanished ere the two gentlemen entered the 
library. Mr. Craig proceeded at once to explain his 
business by taking from his pocket a letter which he 
handed Warren. It ran thus ; 

“Galveston, 18—. 

' “ Mr. Elmore Craig : 

Dear Sir : — Three days ago, when making my usual rounds 
through the cemetery here — of which I am and have been for two 
years the keeper — ^just before closing the gates for the night, my 
attention was arrested by a black object upon one of the marble slabs 
on the west side of the chapel. 

“ On approaching the tombstone, I found stretched upon it the 
body of a woman. She lay upon her back, with her hands crossed 
over her breast, and between her folded hands a letter. Either she 
had been placed there a corpse, or had placed herself there in the 
attitude of a corpse. 


400 


“TY/fi* DAY IS DONEV 


“ On drawing near and touching her, I found that she was quite 
dead. The most remarkable-looking person, dead or alive, that it 
has ever been my luck to see— a skin like copper, and snow-white 
hair, brows, and lashes. The eyes were wide open, staring up to the 
sky, and as black as the night within her poor brain. 

“ I took the letter from her hands. It was addressed to ‘ The 
Keeper of the Graves.’ I opened the large envelope, and took from 
it a heavy sheet of paper and another letter, sealed with wax. On 
the paper was written, in a cramped and tremulous hand : 

“ ‘ Bury me in the grave on which you find my body lying — it is 
an empty grave.’ 

“Of course, I said, the woman is some poor, mad creature. She 
was lying on a slab, inscribed : 

“ ‘ Sacred to the memory of my dear wife, Rachel Croft. A tribute 
of love and remembrance from her husband.* 

“ Had I any right to obey the dead woman’s instructions, and bury 
her in the grave of Rachel Croft ? was my natural inquiry of my con- 
science. I decided to consult the authorities. 

“ The sealed letter within the envelope addressed to ‘ The Keeper 
of the Graves ’ bears the superscription under which I write this. I 
forward the whole as I found it to your address, as given in the 
woman’s letter. 

“Meantime the authorities became as curious as myself, and it was 
decided to test the truth of the dead woman’s assertion about the 
empty grave. It was opened, and a handsome metal casket dis- 
interred. Within the casket lay — five large stones, packed in dry 
moss ! We laid the dead body in the casket, in place of the stones. 
It fitted her exactly. 

“The police were put on track of the strange dead body found in 
the cemetery. They brought light upon the mystery in the form of 
printed reports of a celebrated trial in your State, in which you were 
the prosecuting attorney. I presume the inclosed will explain all. 

“ Respectfully yours, Ruben Purcel.” 

The contents of the sealed letter were very brief. They 
simply instructed Mr. Craig to prove the will of the 
deceased Rachel Croft, and to administer thereon without 


^^THE DAY IS done:* 


401 


*‘And this, sir, is the will of the deceased," said Mr. 
Craig, handing a legal paper to Gordon Warren, and 
curiously watching his face the while. It was drawn up 
by Mr. Craig, signed by the deceased, and witnessed by 
Mr. Craig's copying clerk and another lawyer, Mr. Fields. 
It was simply this : 

“ To Gordon Warren, Esq., I bequeath, to him and to his heirs 
forever, the whole of my estate, without limitation or condition. 

“Signed, Rachel Croft.” 

As Warren read the brief, but to him strangely signifi- 
cant, testament of the unhappy being who had thus 
mysteriously passed out of existence, believing herself 
childless, and knowing herself utterly desolate, his heart 
was deeply wrung in presence of this tribute to his 
tenderness and fondness toward the child in whom the 
poor mother's all of life was centered. 

He could not speak for a few moments, and, when he 
did, his eyes were moist and his lips trembled. He said, 
simply : 

“It has all happened as she would have wished. I am 
glad it has." 

Then he added, as he restored the will to Mr. Craig : 

“You will do me the kindness to execute for me a 
deed making over the whole sum bequeathed to me by 
that testament to my wife. Faith Warren, and to her heirs." 

Long after that. Faith said to her husband : 

“Is it not strange that my mother should have chosen 
\Q pass her last da^^s In Europe among strangers, and then 


402 


^^THE DAY IS DONEI^ 


to die without leaving me a single clew to the mystery of 
why I was confided to the guardianship of that unhappy 
man, Mathew Croft?" 

“This life is made up of strange things, my little wife, 
but your name and your nature is Faith. Trust me, it 
will all seem right when ‘ the secrets of all hearts are 
revealed ’ in the bright hereafter. We are happy — that is 
enough. " 

★ 

The bleak and bitter days of winter have come," and 
seared the earth dun and brown. It is Christmas-tide. 

Leda Morgan sits before the window of her little music- 
room, with her forehead pressed against the panes of 
glass, gazing out into the cold, gray afternoon. She is 
all alone, and has been alone for days. The pupils have 
taken a holiday until after the great festival, and she has 
had nothing for a whole week to break the dull monotony 
of her solitude. 

No cne ever visits her, for she has no mind to receive 
such as would call, and she coldly repels all overtures from 
her neighbors in the house. 

She has grown quite desperate with sitting there watch- 
ing the heavy drift of leaden clouds, for the weather 
threatens snow. It has been long since she has caught 
even a glimpse of Gordon Warren. Since her insulting 
remarks of Faith, he has never been near her, though in 
many ways has made her feel that he looks after her 
comfort. She called once at hovise after his marriage^ 


'^THE DAY IS DONE I* 403 

but, by his instructions, Faith had begged to be excused 
from receiving her, and,- as she did not have any more 
poison to distill into Mrs. Warren's ear, she never went 
there again. But the cancer of her malignant hatred to 
Faith and disappointed passion for Warren was slowly 
eating out her life. 

She rose from the window, and putting on some wraps 
and a thick vail, set forth to walk herself wear}% that she 
might the sooner sleep and forget her misery. She fol- 
lowed the street on which she lived for one or two squares, 
and then passed into the handsomest and most aristocratic 
quarter of the town, where the wealthiest citizens had 
their residences, surrounded by large gardens and shrub- 
beries. As she reached one of the most elegant of these, 
which had been for some months closed on account of 
the death of owner and the absence of his family, she was 
surprised to see the house opened and brilliantly lighted 
on the first floor. She paused beyond the iron railing 
that divided a spacious and elegant garden from the street, 
and looked wistfully across the rich flower-beds, with their 
fountains and the statuary gleaming here and there amid 
the dark shrubs and hedges, into a window that opened to 
the floor on the broad colonnade with marble columns. 

The heavy velvet curtains were looped away, and through 
the closed glass doors the interior of the room was visible. 
The warmth of luxurious comfort and the soft splendor 
of wax-lights was within. A stream of light flowed out 
from the wide, tessellated hall upon the piazza. 


404 


^^THE DAY IS DOHEI* 


Presently a lady came and sat herself at the piano near 
the curtained window. She had struck but a few chords 
when a man came and stood at her shoulder, and stroked 
her hair tenderly, and leaned over her fondly, then bent 
his lips down to hers. The lady was in an evening dress 
of pale-blue velvet, and a bandeau of pearls was bound 
about her brow. She had risen now, and the gentleman 
was folding a rich mantle of sables about her lovely bare 
shoulders. Then they came out of the hall together, his 
arm about her waist ; the ripple of low, sweet laughter 
was answering something he had just said to her. They 
passed down the pebble walk to the gate, only a few yards 
from where Leda was standing on the pavement shivering 
with cold in the darkness. 

An elegant phaeton stood before the gate, and into this 
the gentleman assisted the lady, and wrapped about her 
the carriage furs. 

“Are you sure you are quite warm, my darling?" he 
said, as he stepped in beside her. 

“ Quite sure, Gordon. " 

“To Colonel Manley’s," said The gentleman to his 
coachman, and the carriage drove away. 

Leda remained as if frozen into an image of ice where 
she stood. 

Colonel Manley’s was the house of the city. To cross 
its portals was to enter the enchanted circle of the noblesse. 

Leda knew from her landlady that Colonel Manley gave 
a grand Christmas ball on this night. 


“ras DAv IS done:^ 


405 


It was to this feast that Gordon Warren was taking his 
bride. The munificent fortune into which Mr. Warren 
had come with his marriage had condoned all the offenses 
connected with it. 

Leda stood watching the grand mansion long after the 
master and mistress had passed from sight. 

A man walked by her up the street. She said : 

"‘Who lives here now?" 

“Mr. Warren, madam. He bought the place some 
time ago, but has .only recently moved into it. It was 
undergoing repairs and refurnishing.” 

The informant passed on. 

Slowly, and as if unable to drag her feet from the spot, 
Leda retraced her steps. 

When she reached her own room it looked smaller than 
ever — the fire had burned out on the hearth, the lamp 
shone feebly, the place was so still, so lonely, so chill. 

She sat down by the table, and leaned her white, 
haggard face on her hand ; over and over, and over again 
she seemed to be seeing that tableau through the window, 
as Gordon Warren leaned in adoration over the fair, 
angelic face of his wife, and kissed her lips. The silent 
air of the close little room seemed to re-echo the sound 
of Faith's happy laughter. 

“Ah, my God! how can I bear it, and not go mad?” 
moaned the wretched Leda. 

But bear it she must. Life stretched drearily out before 
her; she was still so young. 


4o6 


^^THE DAY IS DOETE:^ 


“Is her curse being wrought out, I wonder?’^ she cried; 
and, casting her hat and cloak from her, she went to a 
desk and took forth a letter. 

She spread it out beneath the lamp. It was crookedly 
and feebly written, as if the hand that penned it had been 
too weak to guide the pen. The words were few, but 
they were terrible : 

“He loved yoti even as he loathed me. But his love and his hate 
shall be alike our mutual ruin. My long trouble is at its close, and I 
shall lie down to sleep in the bed he made for me years ago. Your 
pain is but begun; but it will work its will as mine did, only without 
the consolation that sweetened my sufferings until you robbed me 
of it. I worshiped him, and I could bear to endure ; you must 
endure, while the dull agony feeds on your life-blood till the last 
drop is drunk. From your glorious beauty to withered age like 
mine you must live on, knowing that your love will have no reward 
here or hereafter. The man you love will turn from you with a 
bitterer scorn than that which blasted my life. When all is done, 
which of us, I wonder, will envy the other ? When your pain stings 
the keenest, be patient, and remember His Other Wife/’ 


THl END. 


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0 . 48 -THE MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE, by A. M. Douglas 25 

0 . 47 — SADIA THE ROSEBUD, by Julia Edwards 25 

0 . 46— A MOMENT OF MADNESS, by Charles J. Bellamy 25 

b. 45— WEAKER THAN A WOMAN, by Charlotte M. Brame 25 

0 . 44— A TRUE ARISTOCRAT, by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 25 

'o. 43 — TRIXY, by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 25 

jb. 42— A DEBT OF VENGEANCE, by Mrs. E. Burke CoUins 25 

;b. 41— BEAUTIFUL RIENZI, by Annie Ashmore 25 

ib 40 — AT A GIRL’S MERCY, by Jean Kate Ludlum ^ 25 

Fo. 39 — MARJORIE DEANE, by Bertha M. Clay 25 

fo. 38 — BEAUTIFUL, BUT POOR, by Julia Edwards 25 

fo. 37— IN LOVE’S CRUCIBLE, by Bertha M. Clay 25 

fo. 36— THE GIPSY’S DAUGHTER, by Bertha M. Clay 25 

To. 35 — CECILE’S MARRIAGE by Lucy Randall Comfort 25 

fo. 34— THE LITTLE WIDOW, by Julia Edwards 25 

fo. 33 — THE COUNTY FAIR, by Neil Burgess ‘25 

lo. 32 -LADY RYHOPE’S LOVER, by Emma G. Jones 25 

fo. 31-MARRIED FOR GOLD, by Mrs. E. Burke Collins 25 

fo. 30 -PRETTIEST OF ALL, by Julia Edwards 25 

fo. 29 -THE HEIRESS OF EGREMONT, by Mrs. Harriet Lewis 25 

fo. 28 -A HEART’S IDOL, by Bertha M. Clay 25 

ffo. 27— WINIFRED, by Mary Kyle Dallas 25 

jjfo. 26— FONTELROY, by Francis A. Durivage 25 

ifo. 25— THE KING’S TALISMAN, by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr 25 

l*fo. 24— THAT DOWDY, by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 25 

Lfo. 23— DENMAN THOMPSON’S OLD HOMESTEAD 25 


These popular hooks are larire tvpe editions, well i»rinted, W(*ll hound, and 
In handsome covers. For sale hy all B^'ioksellers and Xew.^^dealers ; or sent. 
oosUufe free, on receipt of price, 25 cents each, hy the puhlishers, 

STREET & SMITH, 

25 to 31 Rose Street, New York. 


P. O. Box 2734. 



FIGHTING FOR IT. 


Here is a jrood-Tiatiired 8(*rainl)le for a cake of Pears’ Soap wlik*!! 
liow iiecessjiry it Ucconu s to all people wlto liave\’)n< e n i( 
and discovered its merits. Some who ask for it have to ti'^htforit 
® wheiv all soils oV ^dlc 

inferior soaps are nrired upon them as siihstimtcs. Hut tliev can alv 
get tbe genuine Pears Soap, if they will he as persistent us are these urcl 


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